Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #137： The Basics of Biblical Apologetics with James White and Dale Partridge

00:00:00.000 Welcome to a special edition of Real Christianity.

00:00:09.320 I'm your host, Dale Partridge, and over the past several months, I've had the privilege

00:00:13.240 of interviewing 12 of the top theologians of our time.

00:00:16.560 We discuss everything from apologetics and church history to the biblical family and

00:00:20.880 standing firm on sound doctrine.

00:00:22.740 The objective of this series was to strengthen the theology of listeners and give them the

00:00:27.060 tools they need to boldly proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. So listen up, focus in, and

00:00:32.700 prepare your mind for volume one of the Theologian Series. In this episode of the Theologian Series,

00:00:40.960 I interview Dr. James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries on the topic of presuppositional

00:00:46.340 apologetics. Dr. White is the author of nearly 30 books and is one of the world's leading

00:00:51.540 apologist. He specializes in a defense against false religions like Mormonism, the Jehovah's 0.97

00:00:57.240 Witnesses, the Roman Catholic Church, and even Islam. You can find videos of his debates and

00:01:02.340 apologetic resources all across the internet. Now, for those who don't know, there are several

00:01:07.120 forms of apologetics in church history. There's the classical, evidential, experiential, and

00:01:12.920 presuppositional models. And today we're going to be focusing on the latter. And this form of

00:01:18.000 Apologetics is not interested in trying to persuade atheists with worldly logic or science

00:01:24.600 or experience. No, presuppositional apologetics speaks of God in the same way the apostles and

00:01:30.480 prophets did in scripture. That is, they don't attempt to prove God's existence. They assume

00:01:36.520 God's existence and anchor their central defense in scripture alone. In many ways, they preach the

00:01:43.160 biblical truth about God and just let the Holy Spirit change the heart and mind of whoever

00:01:48.680 they're speaking with. So guys, grab your Bible and sharpen your pencil because it's time to

00:01:53.460 tune into another episode of The Theologian Series. Well, welcome to The Theologian Series.

00:02:02.440 It's exciting to have you here, Dr. James White. Break us in. Just tell us who you are. Why are

00:02:08.540 you here? How has everybody heard of you? I've always asked why I'm here. That's one of the

00:02:14.920 great questions of life. I have no idea why anyone contacts me and wants to do any of these things

00:02:20.080 because generally they ask me one question, I talk for the rest of the program, they fall asleep.

00:02:24.380 So that's just sort of how it all ends up going on. I guess I'm here because over the past now 30

00:02:31.380 years I've done 175 moderated public debates around the world and that's

00:02:37.700 pretty much what I'm known for I suppose that and the dividing line program we've

00:02:42.160 done since the 1980s actually we're coming up on 40 years for Alpha and

00:02:46.820 Omega ministries and I look every day of it I'm well aware of that but I do

00:02:52.500 apologetics and I've taught for all sorts of different schools around the

00:02:56.520 world. And I'm a pastor at Apologia Church in, well, we say the Phoenix area because we tend to

00:03:04.380 move around a little bit. We don't own our own buildings, so we have to move around every once

00:03:08.420 in a while. But married for coming up on 40 years and two kids and four and a half grandchildren

00:03:15.560 and one to be announced eventually. And so written a few books. Haven't done that in a little while,

00:03:24.640 But it looks like we'll be doing another one pretty soon, hopefully, with a fairly well-known fellow.

00:03:30.500 But so opportunities abound, and I've just simply taken advantage of them when I can.

00:03:36.540 And so I guess that's probably how I ended up crossing anybody's radar.

00:03:41.320 Yeah, I read Potter's Freedom not long ago, actually.

00:03:46.560 It was on my list to check out.

00:03:49.720 And someone said, hey, you got to read this in a defense of Reformed theology.

00:03:54.200 Um, and it was just a fantastic book. It's very heavy, um, in terms of maybe not to you,

00:03:59.580 um, but to the average reader, it's just a, it's a, it's a deep read. You want to go like

00:04:04.540 eight pages at a time and go, okay, I'm going to take a break on that. Um, but it's been a,

00:04:09.320 it's been a pleasure to, to learn your theology, watch some of those debates that you've done over

00:04:13.240 the years. And, um, and I'm excited to have you on the show today. And so I want to talk about

00:04:18.780 apologetics with you. Again, I think the average churchgoer doesn't understand necessarily what

00:04:25.400 this term is. And if they do, there's multiple definitions of this term because there's the

00:04:31.320 Norman Geisler, Ravi Zacharias apologetics. There's the Votie Bauckham apologetics. There's

00:04:36.240 the James White apologetics. There's a variety of shades out there. I know some of you guys are

00:04:40.620 similar in some ways, but some of you guys are very different in other ways. And so the first

00:04:45.780 question that I'm going to ask you here is, let's start off by offering the average churchgoer a

00:04:50.820 basic definition of apologetics and the variety of apologetic forms or disciplines that currently

00:04:57.580 exist in the church. Wow, currently exist in the church really expands that out. But by the way,

00:05:03.340 Vody and I would pretty much be on the exact same page. And in fact, he had me speak at his

00:05:09.220 his school in zambia uh year before last and we we did a mock we almost had a debate set up with

00:05:16.020 the local imam but they bailed out and so voti played the imam and as i sat there looking at

00:05:23.220 that mountain of a man next to me i was really wondering do i need to be doing this or is but

00:05:28.420 then i realized he's totally on my side so it was cool but uh yeah voti voti and i are pretty much

00:05:32.900 on the same same page as far as apologetics goes but obviously apologetics classically historically

00:05:38.900 is what is used to describe the defense of the faith it in greek historical usage it was giving

00:05:45.860 a defense of your life your positions things like that and within christian theology it is giving a

00:05:51.860 defense of the faith and how do you do that well you have to ask the question to whom are you giving

00:05:57.700 the defense of the faith so most people when they think of apologetics think of giving a defense to

00:06:03.860 an atheist. But obviously, there's long history in the church of giving a defense against religious

00:06:11.700 people. So for example, the biggest apologetic issue in the early church for 150 years was

00:06:18.500 Gnosticism. That was a huge danger to the early church. And so that was a religious form of

00:06:24.500 apologetics. And then of course, you have apologetics within the church, within the

00:06:29.300 broad church in the sense of dealing with groups that claim to be Christian but have either serious

00:06:35.940 errors or fundamentally deny the faith but still continue to claim to be Christian. Today we're

00:06:40.980 dealing with Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, things like that. And then of course there's the 0.75

00:06:45.860 the role apologetics has in edifying the saints. I know that the debates I've done, one of the main

00:06:52.580 reasons we do them the way that we do them is to edify christians to show them how they too can

00:06:59.540 give a defense of their their faith within various contexts and to do so with gentleness and reverence

00:07:04.580 so apologetics is a broad term and as you indicated there are different schools of thought as to how

00:07:12.580 you're to do this i am very convinced that theology determines apologetics not the other way around

00:07:20.580 If you were to ask a famous general, if you were to say to the general, defend, the first

00:07:29.820 thing that the general would say to you, defend what?

00:07:33.660 Because how he's going to mount his defense, design his defense, and everything else is

00:07:38.280 all dependent upon what he's going to be defending.

00:07:41.080 Where is it?

00:07:42.080 What's the lay of the land?

00:07:43.080 Where's the enemy coming from?

00:07:44.400 These are all vitally important things.

00:07:46.260 what's strange to me is a lot of christians will get excited about apologetics because they hear

00:07:52.100 somebody uh use an argument and it goes real well and they go wow that's a really strong argument

00:07:59.780 and and they'll they'll do they'll go i'm gonna grab hold of that and not ask themselves the

00:08:04.900 question yeah but is that argument really consistent with the full body of what i believe

00:08:10.020 in theology itself so they see it on a pragmatic level that really works well and then end up

00:08:16.340 developing a theology that matches the the the apologetic argument that's i think a very dangerous

00:08:22.260 perspective that very dangerous direction to go and so i believe you have to start with theology

00:08:27.860 and then ask yourself the question all right if someone objects to this then what is the most

00:08:34.500 efficient and biblical and consistent way that i can give a defense of this this truth so within

00:08:43.220 modern evangelicalism broad evangelicalism you have the most popular schools would fall into

00:08:50.900 the categories of what's called either classical or evidentialist styles of apologetics just think

00:08:57.780 Think of, well, back even when I was a kid, evidence that demands a verdict.

00:09:03.720 You know, Joshua Dowell, that was the big book back in the late 70s, early 80s, and

00:09:10.260 you were obviously being taught that the best way is to present that case, that it's like

00:09:16.340 you're going into a courtroom and you want to lay out your case for Christianity, and

00:09:20.220 that's still very, very, very popular.

00:09:23.300 But there are a lot of folks who would say, well, the problem with that is you're assuming

00:09:27.440 certain things about who you're laying out the case to if i go into a courtroom allegedly

00:09:33.120 ostensibly if justice is being done there is supposed to be neutral ground there's supposed

00:09:39.440 to be neutrality on the part of the judge or the jury and so i'm supposed to be able to just lay

00:09:46.160 out my facts and we're just going to follow the facts to their conclusion the problem is the bible

00:09:51.920 doesn't describe the person who is outside of christ as being neutral toward the claims of

00:09:59.040 christ there are strong words they suppress the knowledge of god is what romans chapter one says

00:10:06.240 and so a lot of people they they you know grab their their books of apologetics they run off to

00:10:11.440 facebook or something like that and discover very very very quickly that no matter how clear and

00:10:17.440 cogent a case you make, the human mind has an incredible capacity to find a way around

00:10:24.900 any form of argumentation whatsoever.

00:10:28.140 And so there's clearly a spiritual aspect.

00:10:30.520 And so outside of the evidentialist and classical apologetics schools, you have those who would

00:10:38.280 follow the great Westminster professor, Cornelius Vance Hill, and his school of thought called

00:10:46.680 presuppositionalism that says look there are certain presuppositions that

00:10:50.620 determine how we handle facts how we know what we know what was called

00:10:55.140 epistemology and you have to deal with those you can't if you don't deal with

00:10:59.440 those you'll find yourself in the situation that Greg Bonson has described

00:11:04.580 a number of times had described number of times obviously he's not with us

00:11:07.780 anymore but he had described a number of times where you you lay out this

00:11:10.900 beautiful wonderful case for the resurrection and you're thinking well

00:11:16.100 obviously if you believe in the resurrection then you're just gonna

00:11:19.900 follow the rest of it to its conclusion and the person goes you know you've

00:11:24.400 you've made a really really good case and my conclusion is some really weird

00:11:29.080 things happen in this world and they don't they don't go the rest of the way

00:11:33.040 why because their epistemology doesn't demand that they do so and and you

00:11:38.140 didn't challenge that and so as a as a presuppositionalist I that does not mean

00:11:44.500 that I don't care about arguments or facts it actually means that every fact

00:11:49.320 is a God fact from my perspective and that every individual is suppressing the

00:11:56.120 truth of God and I need to recognize that I need to be dependent of course

00:11:59.920 upon the Spirit of God for everything but the main thing that practically it

00:12:05.160 works out in in real life is that i present my argumentation in such a fashion that i'm never

00:12:14.280 putting the person that i'm talking to the unbeliever that i'm talking to in the position

00:12:20.680 of judge concerning the existence of god so i many people that's exactly how they'll approach

00:12:28.280 them they're like here let me give you some more facts give me some more facts but if they're

00:12:31.400 already suppressing the facts that they have if they're already suppressing the knowledge of god

00:12:35.080 they have i give them more facts they're just gonna suppress them so i need to present my case

00:12:40.840 in such a way that he's the one who's being judged by god and by the facts he's not in the position

00:12:48.520 of judging god by his utilization of facts and that does change uh really how you how you make

00:12:56.440 your arguments and really how much time you're going to spend on certain certain topics and

00:13:01.400 certain issues and things along those lines and so uh there are all sorts of other variations

00:13:06.760 within the various schools uh you know the the minimal facts people and and the more classical

00:13:13.960 folks even good old rc sproul view himself as a classical apologist rather than a presuppositional

00:13:19.720 apologist and and things like that so there's differences of of opinions on these things

00:13:24.520 but those that's a sort of a breakdown uh and it really comes down to has god revealed himself

00:13:31.400 And does that revelation actually get through?

00:13:34.120 Because if it doesn't get through, okay, then you need to give the poor guy more facts.

00:13:40.420 If it does get through and he's already suppressing them, then giving him more facts isn't going to accomplish anything.

00:13:45.740 And so that's really, for me, where the rubber meets the road.

00:13:49.700 Yeah, I mean, I feel like what most people sadly do in terms of their approach to apologetics is they look at it as persuasion.

00:13:56.700 and they look at it as you just need to convince this person

00:14:04.400 and then you will literally birth them again

00:14:07.580 in terms of how to create a born-again experience

00:14:10.120 through an intellectual persuasion.

00:14:13.240 And that's what so many people start with in their journey.

00:14:17.760 And I think about your statement about theology needs to precede apologetics.

00:14:23.860 apologetics is like the tool, the immediate need in today's lives. So a lot of people just want to

00:14:32.300 go and not learn their theology and instead just grab the screwdriver real quick and run at the

00:14:37.420 problem. And so they come running at the problem with the apologetic, but they don't even have

00:14:42.520 their theology set in concrete yet. And they're unable to defend or to have a full or robust

00:14:50.600 understanding or explanation or comprehension of what they're even defending.

00:14:55.820 And so I think it's a really important discussion that we're having here.

00:15:00.260 And I think a lot of people are confused, Dr. White, about, again, apologetics in the

00:15:05.720 placement in the Christian life or the Christian experience.

00:15:09.860 Is apologetics only something that operates as a precursor to evangelism?

00:15:15.080 Does it work with evangelism?

00:15:18.340 Is apologetics actually evangelism? 0.85

00:15:22.440 Do you use apologetics with non-believers?

00:15:25.400 And I think that we just want to know, where does it fit?

00:15:28.900 Where should we use it in our journey with others, believers and non-believers?

00:15:34.780 Well, that's a good question. 0.62

00:15:36.040 My Muslim friends, it's interesting, in Islam, they don't have a distinction between what

00:15:41.660 we would call evangelism and apologetics.

00:15:43.980 It's all simply called dawah, calling to Islam.

00:15:47.120 and there's there's some wisdom in that I think we need to see what the

00:15:51.020 differentiation is but I I think when we look at the apostolic example when you

00:15:57.180 proclaim the gospel in the world there's always going to be a need to respond to

00:16:03.240 what the world says back there is a there's a conflict that's going to come

00:16:06.780 into existence immediately and so you can't really do evangelism especially

00:16:12.260 in a post-Christian, secular age like we live in now without doing apologetics.

00:16:18.880 And it's not that you do your evangelism and, uh-oh, there's resistance,

00:16:23.280 so let's put on our apologetics hat.

00:16:26.640 I think that's a disaster.

00:16:28.200 I think what you need to do is when you do your evangelism,

00:16:31.680 you do it in such a way that you recognize what the issues are going to be.

00:16:36.280 you understand your audience, and you make your presentation contain apologetic argumentation

00:16:44.040 within it. Because if you don't, then you end up sort of bifurcating things and wasting a lot of

00:16:51.880 time over in areas you don't necessarily need to be spending time in. So obviously, if you're out

00:16:56.840 street preaching, you don't necessarily know what your audience is going to be. But I've always

00:17:02.200 taught students you know if you're going to make claims no matter where you are it can be outside

00:17:06.920 the general conference the mormon church in salt lake city at least back when they're still doing

00:17:11.080 it ever since cova they've just gone completely virtual uh so who knows that we'll ever have a

00:17:16.440 chance to do that again but uh for years and years and years we'd go up to salt lake city and we'd

00:17:20.680 stand outside the gates of the mormon temple during the general conference and and talk to

00:17:25.240 thousands and thousands of mormons and in that context uh it's it's real simple to know exactly

00:17:32.440 how to make your presentations because you you have a 99.9 chance of knowing what the context

00:17:39.560 of the person hearing you what that is if you're on a street corner in new york you you could run

00:17:46.040 into anything i've done street preaching in london and it's a cosmopolitan place you're going to run

00:17:51.400 into every kind of perspective but you always need to make sure that however you're proclaiming it

00:17:57.960 that you're making your statements sound clear consistent do not overstate things and find

00:18:07.480 yourself having to then defend uh what was actually indefensible because you were you're

00:18:12.840 going beyond what the facts actually actually would uh would allow you to say um that's that's

00:18:18.680 that's a that's having an apologetic mind as you're doing the the evangelism so

00:18:23.580 within the church though I think there is a huge huge need and I think I think

00:18:28.820 we do a pretty good job with this at Apologia but of course Jeff Durbin and I

00:18:34.240 are known for doing debates and doing street ministry and stuff like that the

00:18:37.800 people are sort of drawn to the church because of that but but we weave

00:18:41.120 apologetics into the preaching of the text it's not when you it's not like you

00:18:49.460 have to artificially do that because especially when you're looking at the

00:18:54.920 Apostles and what they were facing they're very frequently doing

00:18:57.980 apologetics we're just not filtering that out we're making it a part of that

00:19:01.680 and of course we're very much emphasizing we want our people to be able to give

00:19:07.440 answers so that they have confidence in going out and and doing the work of

00:19:13.020 ministry we don't we don't think that's just what elders are supposed to do the

00:19:17.060 best way to get the word out is when all the people of God in their everyday walk

00:19:21.900 of life are very bold in speaking what speaking the truth that Jesus Christ is

00:19:28.380 Lord and this is what his word says and this is how we should live our lives and

00:19:32.040 and the more prepared people are the bolder they're going to be in that

00:19:36.420 situation. So there is a real function of apologetics within the church, and oh

00:19:41.700 goodness, how about our young people? How about making sure that they are grounded

00:19:46.740 before they head out to the local university and run into the next Bart

00:19:52.440 Ehrman clone, who will attack them on every single level? We have to be

00:19:59.040 doing that kind of apologetic preparation within the church, and especially with

00:20:03.520 our young people. I did that with my kids. My kids will tell you about driving around with dad in our

00:20:10.000 old little Ford, and I bought them little whiteboards that they would have on their laps in

00:20:15.480 the back seat, and we'd do Christian worldview stuff while we're driving around, and those are

00:20:21.000 some of their most precious memories, and now I've got grandkids, and you're going to do the same

00:20:25.980 thing, and you're passing along that way. So yes, there is the apologetics outwardly, most definitely,

00:20:31.940 but it's very much a part of the preparation of, I think, sound biblical evangelism as well within

00:20:39.800 the church. Yeah, and with your own family. I love that you said that about your family,

00:20:44.240 is that, you know, just the catechesis process of your children. And, you know, one thing you

00:20:51.880 said there is that preparedness precedes boldness. And this is one thing that I think a lot of people

00:21:01.060 are trying to figure out why don't I have the confidence to go do street ministry? Why don't

00:21:07.720 I have the confidence to go talk to my friend or my neighbor or my sister or my parents or whoever

00:21:13.880 it may be about the gospel? And they're driven. So many people I've talked to are just afraid

00:21:22.860 because they don't understand. I think about Jesus when he talks about the first and greatest

00:21:27.540 commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your

00:21:30.020 mind. We seem to have dropped off that last need where we love him with our heart and soul. We have

00:21:37.180 a very emotional relationship with God and the text of scripture, but we don't have an intellectual

00:21:42.420 position or standing with scripture. Tell us why we need to, especially in this era. Things are

00:21:52.240 changing a bit. Information is on fire. And how do we love the Lord with our mind?

00:21:58.840 You know, one of the most famous lines in any of my books that I've had repeated back to me by people literally around the world in South Africa and Australia and Russia, they'll say to me, I love the Trinity.

00:22:17.180 And that line is in the introduction to my book on the Trinity, the Forgotten Trinity.

00:22:21.140 and I'm talking there about the fact that you'll hear people saying I love

00:22:27.180 prophecy I love apologetics I love especially at eschatology oh yeah ooh if

00:22:35.180 you want to fill up your church do an eschatological type thing or if you want

00:22:39.200 to split your church that's another another way to do it as well but we hear

00:22:44.960 people saying that I love the doctrine of justification but you never hear

00:22:48.020 anybody saying I love the Trinity and the reason you don't is because most 0.55

00:22:55.160 Christians don't understand it they're uncomfortable with it they're afraid

00:22:59.460 someone's gonna ask them to define it they're afraid someone's gonna really 0.60

00:23:03.080 press them on what the relationship the divine persons is and how can you know

00:23:08.300 is Jesus one person or two persons and all sorts of stuff like that and and

00:23:11.960 there are solid answers to all those things but let's just be honest most of

00:23:17.180 our people are confessional trinitarians but not really functional trinitarians

00:23:21.560 it's not it's not let's put this way for most Christians in the American

00:23:26.000 Church they never have to think about the doctrine of the Trinity from Sunday

00:23:30.060 to Sunday and that's not a good thing that's that's a really bad thing and so

00:23:34.880 what does that mean well we need to know we need to know what our faith is I

00:23:39.800 think I think when people don't know who God is that horribly deprecates worship

00:23:47.240 I mean we look at the at all the weirdness that takes place in

00:23:51.820 evangelicalism under the name of worship why is that well because we don't know

00:23:56.100 the God that we're supposed to be worshiping we're so focused upon

00:23:59.040 fulfilling felt needs and making people feel good that that we don't recognize

00:24:04.220 that that worship is defined by God because God defines himself the the

00:24:09.240 object of the worship is is not known by so many of our people and so when we

00:24:14.400 talk about loving loving God with all our heart mind and strength and that

00:24:18.220 mind aspect of of it we we have a huge revelation from God sitting in our laps

00:24:24.480 no one can ever plumb the depths of the Word of God no one can plumb the depths

00:24:28.620 of of the thoughts that that godly men have had down through the ages concerning

00:24:34.280 these things and yet most of us are just really to be honest with you we're

00:24:41.060 satisfied with 40 maybe even 45 minutes we go a lot longer at our church but 40

00:24:47.540 45 minutes on Sunday morning and if we're really spiritual 35 minutes on

00:24:51.140 Sunday night and if we're super spiritual 20 minutes on Wednesday night

00:24:54.560 and that's enough and it's nowhere near enough it can't even get close to being

00:25:00.080 enough and so uh apologetics reveals this because of the fact that that that fear and that hesitation

00:25:10.640 that we have to be bold in our witness is a recognition on our part that we know there's

00:25:15.680 all sorts of questions that we actually have that we have not done the work to actually come up with

00:25:21.600 the answers for ourselves and therefore huh what if somebody else uh what if somebody else asks

00:25:28.640 those questions of me why I I don't want to get into a situation like that so

00:25:33.140 really we're we we show honor to God when we recognize the depth of the

00:25:39.860 revelation that he's given to us in Scripture and that should be something

00:25:45.240 that's absolutely a central passion for all of us and I have a feeling as more

00:25:51.860 and more of our world's goods become threatened in a ever more hostile world situation, that we

00:26:02.940 will start to understand that that kind of treasure is the most precious treasure we can have,

00:26:09.440 and nobody can take it from us. That's what's wonderful about it.

00:26:13.680 Amen. Yeah, I think about this, the idea of just, yeah, we throw our shovels in,

00:26:17.940 we're done. We get down six inches below the surface and we go, hey man, I've dug down pretty

00:26:22.480 deep this week. And we throw our shovels on the side and we don't realize that it's just so much

00:26:27.900 deeper. It's so much better. And I think just Christians need to realize that they have a

00:26:32.820 ministry. I think the structure of the American church has really lent itself to creating passive 0.97

00:26:39.280 inactive spectators of churchianity that don't participate, but they consume. And it doesn't

00:26:44.980 prepare them to actually get out, defend, and do the work of the Great Commission. And it brings me

00:26:50.660 to my next question, Dr. White, of, you know, the average Christian's not out there necessarily on

00:26:56.340 stages preaching, but they are having coffee. They're having dinner with their non-Christian 0.99

00:27:02.540 friend, their coworker, their neighbor, their family member. And what are some basic principles

00:27:08.160 of initiating discussions around the gospel? I think about, when I think about guys like Ray

00:27:14.380 comfort. You know, I know his style. And then I think about guys who are more pastoral and gentle

00:27:21.580 and easing. And then I think about guys like you who are very intellectual in terms of the approach.

00:27:28.560 What have you seen over the years as being just some good examples of, hey, how do you start that

00:27:34.820 conversation? Well, the reality is we live in a situation now where that conversation pursues us.

00:27:43.020 When you think about the great issues in our society, in Western society today, they're almost all gospel issues. 1.00

00:27:52.860 I'm reading a book right now that's just breaking my heart about the transgender craze and the destruction that this wreaks in the lives, especially of young women. 1.00

00:28:05.920 And I've got three granddaughters. One turns five this week, one turns seven next month, 1.00

00:28:13.280 and the other turns 11 next month. And so they're all in that age range where this stuff's going to

00:28:20.320 be coming at them. And if we can't see how that is a gospel issue, that is a worldview issue,

00:28:30.240 I don't know how a Christian could even begin to address the topic without

00:28:35.900 going directly to the gospel directly to the authority of Jesus a number of

00:28:40.380 years ago I was teaching an apologetics class at Phoenix Seminary and I was

00:28:45.620 invited on to the dr. Drew show to address the subject of transgenderism

00:28:51.180 and they wanted to do it on Skype and so we did and that was not wise by the way 1.00

00:28:57.400 You can't have a meaningful conversation that way with multiple people

00:29:02.080 You will always get talked over if you're the poor guy sitting over there on the little on the little screen

00:29:06.960 But it went well enough that they contacted me a few days later and they said would you like to come back on?

00:29:12.720 And I said yes, but I'd like to be in studio. Well, we don't have money for that. My wife works for an airline

00:29:16.900 I'll fly over. Uh, well, we can't put you up. That's fine. We'll we'll do it

00:29:21.040 Well, hey, if you want to come to studio, we'll we'll do it

00:29:23.600 And so I flew over to L.A. and I went into Satan's headquarters, I mean CNN headquarters, and passed the statues of Moloch and things like that.

00:29:33.920 And I was in studio on the Dr. Drew show.

00:29:38.640 And I remember very clearly at one point during all that type of conversation, not only did one of the other people on the program not understand the doctrine of Trinity, I got to explain that to them on national television.

00:29:50.700 but at one point the issue that came up uh was well okay fine so jesus in matthew chapter 19

00:29:59.020 says god created them male and female and and the roles of husband and wife and family and

00:30:05.020 stuff like that fine but that's just that's just the words in an ancient book and what i said to

00:30:11.180 the fellow wasn't dr drew was one of his sidekicks what i said to the fellow was i'd like to remind

00:30:16.620 you that the man who said those words prophesied his own death and then rose

00:30:21.220 again the third day from the grave and when you can pull that off we'll listen

00:30:24.360 to what you have to say and you should have seen the look on his face it was

00:30:27.660 just like because it was a fundamental challenge to the fact that in his

00:30:33.000 worldview he's the ultimate authority he gets to determine ah so we've got these

00:30:37.860 words they're just words on a page no big deal and I was basically saying you

00:30:41.420 know there's a real world out here with an empty grave that you need to be

00:30:45.160 dealing with. And these are all worldview issues. We can go directly to the issue when we're talking

00:30:52.520 about almost anything that's going on in our world today. So back in the 50s, you may have had to try

00:31:01.620 to artificially create an opportunity to start talking about something because we were watching

00:31:08.700 Leave it to Beaver for crying out loud. I mean, everybody was on a similar page. Now everyone's

00:31:15.060 a completely different page and in fact the orthodox page in our society is thoroughly opposed

00:31:22.740 to the claims of christ and so you can't engage with anyone about what's going on in the world

00:31:28.820 today without going immediately to the worldview issues the problem that we have though is many of

00:31:36.660 our many believers in the church they're they're not aware of what the christian worldview is really

00:31:44.660 all about to begin with it's not just their theology is weak there's also been a lack of

00:31:49.780 connection between the theology and what that must mean as far as the application of worldview is

00:31:54.660 concerned and so that has to be something that every church your your church your church is

00:32:00.740 going to end up filled with sort of religious baptized pagans if you are not constantly

00:32:08.260 beating the drum of what it means to apply the lordship of christ across the spectrum of life

00:32:13.300 that's just it's just a requirement and that's just becoming more and more and more stark with

00:32:18.740 each passing day literally right now so i don't i don't see i don't have anything to offer right now

00:32:25.860 because it just happens naturally if you're going to be consistent in your worldview application

00:32:33.700 it's going to absolutely ooze out of everything that you say and so when people start talking

00:32:40.180 about anything that's going on today it doesn't take much time to be directly

00:32:44.440 into the Lordship of Christ and his authority to speak to these issues and

00:32:50.620 and our need to be able to listen to what he had to say and what he says

00:32:55.560 today so doesn't take much along those lines and and you know ray ray comfort

00:33:02.860 yeah he's he's gonna he's gonna take a discussion of the most recent ball score

00:33:08.780 and within two sentences be there.

00:33:11.000 I don't know that you have to be there quite that fast.

00:33:14.140 But the reality is you talk about almost anything in the news today

00:33:17.860 and you're about two sentences away from it.

00:33:20.500 You really are.

00:33:21.280 Without being artificial, without being cheesy, it's necessary.

00:33:26.680 And in fact, you almost have to exert energy to avoid doing it.

00:33:31.760 And we don't want to do that.

00:33:32.880 We want to use those opportunities.

00:33:34.620 and so you know i'm just coming up with more questions than we had originally planned because

00:33:40.640 the conversation's good um but i want to hit you with something about just the current times we

00:33:45.480 live in um i i can't stand it when people are just going hey you know what it's always been this way

00:33:52.020 and i'm going yeah well there's there's some truth to that statement that there's always been sinners

00:33:55.840 that go to hell and always been saints that go to heaven but the reality is is that there's an

00:34:00.440 amplified evil right now that wasn't there in leave it to beaver era and that we have something

00:34:06.900 that is changing uh in terms of uh just the the information available and the you know if there's

00:34:14.220 a blm riot in um la because of uh you know a police officer had shot somebody there's also

00:34:24.880 within 45 minutes, a BLM riot in Beijing. And this is unique in terms of just the connectedness

00:34:32.780 of the world we live in. There are no BLM riots in Beijing, I assure you.

00:34:39.560 That was the one city you did not want to choose for that. No, they ain't letting that happen. 0.98

00:34:45.160 Let's say Australia. Yeah, London, yeah. Australia, London. You got it. You got it. Beijing? No.

00:34:51.580 So tell me, my thought is, in this new era, in this emerging time, the time that we live

00:35:07.920 in now, the time that my kids are growing up, your grandkids are growing up, what should

00:35:16.140 change in the church and as parents for preparing our children, preparing our congregations

00:35:26.000 for the reality that we're not in peaceful times as we were maybe 50, 60, 70 years ago.

00:35:32.680 We are in a different grade of war zone. My child has to look at bathroom signs that have

00:35:40.840 all types of gender implications. You know, I didn't have to do that. What should we be thinking 1.00

00:35:49.480 as pastors, as Christians, as church leaders on how to prepare the flock for what's coming?

00:35:57.820 Sometimes people will quote the aphorism from Ecclesiastes, there's nothing new under the sun,

00:36:03.600 to say, you know, all we've got to do is look at the past and we can learn from the past what we

00:36:08.440 need to do in the present. There's all sorts that we can learn in the past. I've taught church

00:36:12.360 history for decades, and I think it's one of the most neglected subjects out there. I think

00:36:18.560 having a knowledge of that is incredibly encouraging and helpful. And I was just reading a

00:36:24.660 book recently that talks about what Christianity is going to be facing, this soft totalitarianism 0.69

00:36:34.500 that's being introduced into our culture. And there was a lot of discussion about how people

00:36:39.340 survived under the Soviet domination in the last century. And there is stuff that we can learn from

00:36:45.180 that. But the Soviets did not have spy satellites. The Soviets did not have drones. The Soviets did

00:36:52.420 not have the kind of technology that the Chinese Communist Party is using today to absolutely

00:36:59.940 track every single individual and assign them a social credit score and know exactly where they

00:37:05.520 are at every point in time when they're asleep when they're awake who they talk to total observation

00:37:10.860 no privacy whatsoever they didn't have that and so you know they yeah the church could go out in

00:37:17.760 the in the woods and and have church you can't you know that's not going to be a possibility when

00:37:23.700 the new globalism says that we're not gonna let that happen because they have drones and

00:37:29.400 satellites and tracking everybody and everything else so yeah there is there

00:37:34.200 is there are new challenges that we have to be prepared for that that I don't

00:37:39.600 have all the answers to by the way I wish I did but there are new challenges

00:37:44.100 that we must recognize are out there and so there has to be a recognition on our

00:37:49.980 part that we are going to need tremendous wisdom we are going to need to

00:37:55.780 have a tremendous dedication to the church. We're going to have to, hopefully, all this COVID stuff

00:38:02.260 has taught all of us that we took our freedoms to gather, to have the Lord's Supper, to see

00:38:10.140 baptisms, far too for granted for a very, very long time. And all of a sudden, the question is

00:38:17.900 going to become how much is it worth to you to be able to meet with the gathered

00:38:24.720 body to partake of the Lord's Supper because it could cost you your job we

00:38:30.380 had we had people in our church that we had to help them find new places to live

00:38:36.460 because the people they were living with said if you're gonna go to a church and

00:38:42.660 they're gathering you can't live here anymore we won't let you because we

00:38:47.500 consider it to be too dangerous for us you see and so these were issues that

00:38:53.260 we we were having to think through and having to work through and deal with and

00:38:56.740 it's not gonna get any easier in the future and it looks like it's gonna get

00:39:02.000 a lot harder a lot faster to be perfectly honest with you and so all of

00:39:06.520 this is going to require us to have a very clear set of priorities that are

00:39:13.340 based upon biblical revelation and not just upon our experience of america up through say the year

00:39:22.140 2000 that that that is not a hermeneutical lens it may be one that we use a lot but that's not a

00:39:28.780 hermeneutical lens it's going to do us any good the church is always slow and reacting slow and

00:39:34.140 catching up to where things are and a lot of us have very ingrained ways of thought

00:39:39.420 what makes us comfortable what we what we have around us the things that we

00:39:44.260 want to have in our lives and we're gonna have to I'm preaching to myself

00:39:49.780 now we're gonna have to really really examine what we love and what will drive

00:39:55.780 us in the future and that's that's that's that's actually something I've

00:40:01.920 been preaching for a while but it's becoming more and more and more real as

00:40:07.180 as you see what's coming at us and how quickly it's coming at us.

00:40:12.240 I mean, that's the whole reason, James, that we're doing this, is this podcast series. I mean,

00:40:18.580 it's already on top of our episodes. We have a large listenership, really committed believers

00:40:24.060 who are serious about their faith. And we wanted to add this series of theologians talking about

00:40:31.760 these matters because we wanted to equip and edify the church beyond the average sermon in

00:40:38.160 terms of beyond the discussions and going beyond, yeah, a lot of the topical things that people

00:40:45.340 jump into, getting into deeper theology, understanding sound doctrine, understanding

00:40:50.620 where they stand so that they can defend that position. And as we close here, Dr. White,

00:40:57.160 Um, last question I have for you really is, um, for those who are new to the discipline

00:41:04.620 of apologetics, uh, the history of it, who should we look to, um, for good examples historically

00:41:10.840 and, and people today, and then maybe can you give us a few books that we might be able

00:41:15.640 to pick up to, to start our journey of studying and preparing, uh, to defend the truth?

00:41:20.860 Well, if the listener shares my theology, it's interesting, I've actually run into some

00:41:31.180 non-reformed folks that try to be presuppositional in their apologetics. I don't know how that works.

00:41:37.580 I really honestly don't. I think they sort of see how it makes sense, and they see the strength of

00:41:43.800 the argumentation but if you don't have a reformed understanding of man being

00:41:48.900 the made image of God and suppressing the knowledge of God I don't know how

00:41:54.300 the system really works but most of your listeners have probably seen or listened

00:41:59.280 not seen which I wish they could have seen I wish it was recorded but listen

00:42:03.600 to the classical debate between Greg Bonson and Gordon Stein that was record

00:42:09.600 years and years ago in California. That's always a good one to start with. I tried to sort of

00:42:17.120 emulate some of that, though my opposition was a little bit different when I debated Dan Barker

00:42:23.580 at the University of Illinois a number of years ago. Try to give a clear presuppositional

00:42:29.740 presentation in that type of a context. Of course, Doug Wilson loves to walk onto university campuses

00:42:36.880 and cause riots, and smile the whole time he's doing it.

00:42:42.900 And so he's done, Doug and I have debated a number of the same people, including Dan

00:42:47.000 Barker, which is interesting to hear how both of those debates went when we engaged him.

00:42:53.820 But Doug's another person to be looking at.

00:42:56.440 It's interesting, Doug and I have debated each other a number of times, and yet we also

00:43:03.140 do very friendly things together and and that that's that that demonstrates that

00:43:10.160 you can you can do apologetics and you can debate somebody but doesn't

00:43:14.880 necessarily mean you're saying that person's outside the the outside the

00:43:18.380 family and we would share a lot in common along those lines and so but but

00:43:24.620 honestly the most useful thing that anybody can can do other than there are

00:43:30.440 number of books that are number of books have just come out recently that fall

00:43:35.960 into the Vantillian bonds sunny in camp that sort of explain things on a basic

00:43:43.820 level but I'll be honest with you what what on a practical level for me is most

00:43:48.860 important is people ask you know what what classes did you take in Bible

00:43:54.080 college and seminary that have prepared you the most for doing you know I used

00:43:59.440 to be a regular on the bible answer man or going on dr drew or you know doing that kind of uh where

00:44:07.200 you you really can't know what's going to be coming behind the next question or something

00:44:10.920 like that you have to have a solid foundation uh what what helped you the most and i've always had

00:44:17.700 the same answer it's very very simple uh greek and church history greek and church history

00:44:24.780 now a lot of people say well greek oh really i've taught many many people greek and i've taught many

00:44:31.100 people greek outside of a seminary or bible college situation and um there are ways of of

00:44:38.140 learning uh there are there are people like bill mounts that have written their their grammars and

00:44:44.060 their workbooks and they've they've they've designed computer things and they've put all

00:44:48.540 their lectures online and all that kind of stuff to make it possible for a

00:44:54.080 person to be able to do that it there there are few things that give more

00:45:00.180 confidence in responding to the widest range of argumentation against the

00:45:05.820 teaching of Christianity then being able to recognize that people are

00:45:10.780 misrepresenting the fundamental foundational truths of the New

00:45:14.160 Testament found in the original languages and it's a truism the

00:45:19.800 greatest commentary on the New Testament that's ever been written is the New

00:45:23.660 Testament in Greek that's just that's just the case and so I say to a lot of

00:45:29.300 people don't put that off as a that's not possible for me I think it's far

00:45:35.960 more possible for a wider range of people then then you might imagine and

00:45:39.840 church history Wow there's a I have a dear brother who is friend mine in

00:45:48.000 Scotland Nick Needham dr. Nick Needham he's written a multi-volume set Christ

00:45:55.160 power 2,000 years of Christ power is what series called but it's it's a

00:45:59.780 multi-volume set on church history and it's really accessible and and great

00:46:06.980 reading it's it's much easier to read than Schaaf I mean Schaaf sort of the

00:46:11.540 standard but but it's much easier to read than than Philip Schaaf's work and

00:46:16.480 take the time to find out what our history is because so many of the

00:46:20.500 attacks upon the Christian faith are based upon a misrepresentation of what

00:46:24.620 has happened in the past and if we don't know where we came from if we don't know

00:46:29.600 why there are differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics and

00:46:35.400 Eastern Orthodox and where all that derived from and why it's relevant today, we're really

00:46:42.380 going to be in a weak position to be able to give an answer when we are challenged on

00:46:46.380 these important issues.

00:46:47.760 So I say to people, yes, it's one thing to read books on apologetics, but when we used

00:46:57.340 to go up to Salt Lake City, like I said earlier, I would always say to the people that we would

00:47:01.580 be training to go up with us, I said, I would rather have five people with me.

00:47:05.400 Salt Lake City that know their Bible know their faith than 50 people who can

00:47:11.140 rip and shred Joseph Smith but have nothing positive to give in his place

00:47:15.600 and so it's far more important to have a really balanced deep knowledge of your

00:47:22.560 own faith that is to be an expert on all the permutations of apologetic systems

00:47:29.100 but not really have a deep theology that you can give to someone who says you

00:47:34.700 you know what? I agree. Now I've got some questions about your theology. And then you're like, oh,

00:47:39.440 well, let me go find a theologian. No, that's not the way to do it. That's not the way to do it.

00:47:44.440 Amen. I actually, I agree with you so much in your statement about Greek.

00:47:50.040 I just started Greek not long ago, a little over a year ago, and it has been difficult,

00:47:56.000 but incredibly fun and allowed me to have that confidence in the original languages

00:48:02.580 and see what you're talking about there.

00:48:06.560 And I actually did.

00:48:07.600 I did Basics of Biblical Greek with Bill Mounts.

00:48:10.840 And I did one and two through there.

00:48:12.660 And I actually did it on my own

00:48:13.920 and tested out of it at seminary.

00:48:16.180 And that is, it's very easy.

00:48:19.880 There's classes online.

00:48:21.660 There's flashcard apps now.

00:48:24.400 I mean, it's just amazing to do that.

00:48:26.840 And again, your statement on church history,

00:48:28.940 absolutely agree with that.

00:48:30.040 Another great one that's an easy accessible read is Church History in Plain Language by

00:48:35.260 Bruce Shelley.

00:48:36.380 It's just one book, so you don't have to do the multi-volume thing if you're overwhelmed

00:48:39.440 by that, you know, if you're listening and you want to jump down that journey.

00:48:44.180 But it's just, again, when you look at the multi-volume level, you go, oh man, I'm missing

00:48:48.580 a lot.

00:48:49.880 So when you just read a 400-page book on church history and you look next to it and there's,

00:48:54.840 you know, a 6,000-page volume, you realize there's a lot there.

00:49:00.040 So on that note, thank you, Dr. White. Where can we follow you? Where can we find you?

00:49:05.500 Where can we get involved and support your ministry?

00:49:08.720 Well, aomin.org is the website we've had now since, well, it actually started literally within

00:49:16.240 probably six months of the beginning of the internet. And as long as big tech allows us

00:49:24.580 to still exist on the internet aomin.org is our website we do normally two three programs a week

00:49:30.900 we do the dividing line i'll sometimes take calls honestly it what we're going to cover sort of

00:49:38.280 depends on what's going on during the day and sometimes it depends on what pops up on twitter

00:49:42.440 30 seconds before we go live to be perfectly honest with you so we try to keep it we try to

00:49:48.020 keep it lively and and yet we'll also do really in-depth stuff that drives some people crazy but

00:49:54.700 that's what the dividing line is all about and of course that's also how you find out about the

00:49:59.320 debates coming up it's it's sad we were we were cranking the debates last year and 2019 I flew

00:50:06.460 165,000 miles I flew 5,000 miles in 2020 I'm probably not gonna fly in 2021 so we are designing

00:50:15.080 and finishing up a studio for doing online debate,

00:50:21.560 big old screens.

00:50:24.000 And so my opponent will be about the same size I am

00:50:26.660 and be able to, you know, high quality cameras

00:50:30.180 and all the rest of this kind of stuff.

00:50:31.500 And it's coming together right now.

00:50:33.060 And so hopefully in 2021,

00:50:34.660 we'll be doing a number of online debates,

00:50:38.500 not like what's filling YouTube these days,

00:50:41.400 or you've got guys sitting in their PJs slurping slurpees

00:50:46.580 and they just decided to do this 40 minutes earlier,

00:50:50.520 but serious in-depth debates like we've been doing

00:50:53.640 for years and years and years on college campuses,

00:50:56.520 universities, churches around the world,

00:50:58.700 stuff that will hopefully continue to have value

00:51:02.280 for years after it's done.

00:51:04.360 And so that's how we're trying to adjust

00:51:07.460 to the situation that we face in our world today.

00:51:11.400 Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us today. It's been a pleasure to have you.

00:51:17.400 And guys, for those of you who are just loyal listeners to the show, we thank you for

00:51:21.660 your listenership. We also ask that you would leave us a review. You don't need to write

00:51:26.120 anything, but you just need to tap the stars on your podcast app. We're going to be releasing

00:51:29.520 one of these episodes of the Theologian series every single month for a variety of months.

00:51:35.760 We have some incredible guests coming up. Again, thank you, Dr. White,

00:51:39.180 And we will hopefully hear from you soon.

00:51:41.360 Thank you.

00:51:41.720 God bless.

00:52:09.180 My name is Dale Partridge, and we're excited to have you back next week for another episode of Real Christianity.

Dale Partridge - March 17, 2021

Real Christianity #137： The Basics of Biblical Apologetics with James White and Dale Partridge

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