This is the transcript of Restitutio episode 558: Courageous Baptist Seeks Biblical Truth with Joshua Michael Smith This transcript was auto-generated and only approximates the contents of this episode. 00:08 Sean Finnegan Hey there, I'm Sean Finnegan. And you are listening to Restitutio podcast that seeks to recover authentic Christianity and live it out today. 00:24 Sean Finnegan Joshua Michael Smith grew up in northern Florida in a Baptist Church. In this interview, he shares his journey of faith, including how he came to Christ, as well as how he ended up in ministry training and Word of Life before earning a bachelors at Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga. While there, he began questioning his received doctrinal. 00:44 Sean Finnegan Package based on the Bible. As a result, he came to discover the human Messiah of Scripture and courageously embraced this new understanding despite the consequence. 00:55 Sean Finnegan This is part one of his story here now is Episode 558. Courageous Baptist seeks biblical truth with Joshua Michael Smith. 01:13 Sean Finnegan Welcome to rest of studio, Josh. So nice to have you talking with me too. 01:17 Joshua Smith OK. Yeah. It's great to be here. 01:19 Sean Finnegan Sean. So, Josh, why don't you start off by telling us about your background? Did you grow up in a? 01:23 Joshua Smith Christian home, yes. So I grew up in a it was Southern Baptist, but a lot of things that I remember, I don't know if we were really super connected with the Southern Baptist Convention until later, but it maybe free will Baptist would would be the way to. 01:38 Joshua Smith Describe it. I mean, everybody was a Christian. Most of the people in my family that had some wandering times, my grandparents and things when I was came about. I mean, they were all going to church. A part of it. So it really was a great time. My, my father and mother had had some hard times. But when I was born, you know, my dad and my mom were both serving God. 01:57 Joshua Smith My parents were not clergy, but we were chair stackers. You know, we were stacked a lot of chairs. Anytime the church was open, we were there. My parents were either had some kind of leadership in doing events or we were there working. One of the big things I was a part of was Awana. I remember memorizing and and repeating at the end of the year. 02:17 Joshua Smith We had like an award ceremony, like something like 40 or 50 verses. So I I just remember being involved in basically everything the church was doing so. 02:26 Sean Finnegan Would you say you took your faith seriously from the beginning or you you had a conversion experience or? 02:31 Sean Finnegan How would you describe that? 02:33 Joshua Smith When I was seven, I did make a decision to get baptized, to profess faith in Christ, and I used to think that it wasn't legitimate because I went away and I had to come back. And then I ended up, you know, getting baptized again. A lot of times in the South, we call it a rededication kind of thing, and you get baptized. 02:54 Joshua Smith And I did that, I think twice. 02:56 Sean Finnegan But but wonder triply guaranteed, huh? 02:57 Joshua Smith So for sure, yeah, but one one for sure. But I think when I was seven looking back, I really did make a decision. It was based on John 316, which at the time I think as a as a young kid, I think I understood that meant that God sent his son. 03:11 Joshua Smith To die for me so that I could have life and I could have a relationship with God. And I went down without any coercion, and I really did have some life change. And I actually now I remember doing it just from a 7 year old standpoint. And now being older, I think I made a real decision to have faith and I think I was really excited about. 03:31 Joshua Smith Having an actual relationship with God. 03:34 Sean Finnegan But then you did wonder. 03:35 Joshua Smith Yeah, probably. When I was at a Christian School, that wasn't so Christian. So something not every private Christian School is is great. In my case, it it wasn't the school that messed me up. My mom took me out and me, my sister and she homeschooled us, which was good. But then I started going through puberty and my mom, my dad was kind of busy building a business at the time. 03:55 Joshua Smith Actual contractor. 03:56 Joshua Smith Business and. And so she ended up putting me in public school in 7th grade because she had to, which we've talked about this since I think she did the best she could, but I was. I immediately went from like church kid doing bad, you know, not bad things but like going through my emotional journey and and growing up to being, you know, thrown into the lions den because I. 04:17 Joshua Smith I didn't know anybody. I didn't have like, you know, the years beforehand. I I got a world of worldly education in very short amount of. 04:26 Joshua Smith In any good church are going to tell you that sin will separate you from God. And if I really look at it, what really it made it difficult because I realized the things I got involved with and the friends they weren't, it wasn't godly and it I was increasingly becoming more disconnected from my faith because, I mean, I knew I was doing things that the faith said not to do, probably the pinnacle of that is 10th grade. 04:47 Joshua Smith Where one of my friends asked me if I was a Christian. I remember just very boldly looking and I said hell no, I'm not a Christian. You know, that was me basically saying, hey, yeah, my I I go to church, but I kind of have to, but I'm not really this is. 05:01 Joshua Smith Not my thing. 05:03 Sean Finnegan So then what happened? What changed? 05:05 Joshua Smith Well, what changed is there was this girl that I liked on the track team and she was a part of at the I didn't really understand all the differences, but it was a more Pentecostal church in town, which honestly, I didn't have any problems with any of that. I just learned a lot, but they had a an event. It's actually called the call. They still do it. It's a big Pentecostal. 05:09 MHM. 05:25 Joshua Smith Usually Pentecostal Assemblies of God type churches. 05:28 Joshua Smith Go to it and they usually pray for like abortion and they pray for God to heal our land. And it's it was pretty cool. I'd never seen anything like it. But when I went there, I basically got separated from her and I was kind of like in the middle of this gym floor. God just kind of worked it out where I wasn't there with the people I went with. And I was at a time where I was. 05:48 Joshua Smith Was troubled. So sure, I I got into some drugs and alcohol, which, and it's kind of a typical for a lot of teenagers. And I was really looking for hope and looking for something to fill. 06:00 Joshua Smith Coming up and I wasn't finding it. You know, you get little pieces of like, oh, I feel good here or I I I'm with this girl or I'm with. I just got a truck or, you know, I'm starting to drive. You'll have these moments. Maybe you move into a more cool group of kids or whatever it is you're trying to do. You do that. But it never really fixes anything. 06:20 Joshua Smith So I had all that going on in my heart and with the history I had in church, I did have this understanding. 06:24 Joshua Smith Thing that. 06:26 Joshua Smith Maybe in my head, I said it's probably cause I'm not in connection with God. Anyways, I had prayed a lot of prayers, you know, that's a big deal in the South, you know, get people to pray, prayers with God knew what I needed to hear because there was this guy on stage. I'll never know who he was. I have no idea. He. I don't even know if he was a main speaker. I remember too he. 06:43 Joshua Smith He moved a lot. He was like, really moved when he was speaking. 06:46 Joshua Smith And he said he said I was filling the Lord, asking him to challenge people that you're not going to want. 06:52 Joshua Smith To. 06:52 Joshua Smith Change and that's what I needed to. 06:54 Joshua Smith Here, you know he didn't ask me to pray for God to forgive me of my sins. Not saying that's wrong, but I I don't think that would have help me. He said you're going to have to ask God to rip your heart and I'll never forget it. And it just I felt it. And again in that moment I just remember falling on my face and asking God to rip my heart. That was my sinners prayer. 07:14 Joshua Smith Bunch of stuff happened since then, but like that moment I would say was a very defining moment cause it's I've always been on a certain trajectory since that moment, but it was really cool because I felt a literal weight come off me. 07:26 Joshua Smith And if you've ever been around Pentecostal churches, they like to move around and dance. I just remember dancing and jumping up and down and dancing, not knowing anybody around me. And I didn't do that in church. That wasn't. That wasn't like a normal practice. But I had this physical freeness from what happened that it made me want to dance. 07:47 Joshua Smith And it made me want to, you know, sing in the words, even I just felt free. The proof was in the pudding. And since then, I've always been on this trajectory. I've had ups and downs, but that moment I I see is a very. 07:58 Joshua Smith Turning point and since then, my life has never been the same. 08:02 Sean Finnegan You had mentioned to me in a previous conversation about speaking in tongues. Was that something that you experienced in this church or was that unrelated? 08:09 Joshua Smith No. So God will use people. God used that girl that I wanted to date. I actually did date her, but then I found out she really wasn't trying to follow Christ. And so we didn't. Really. Yeah, I felt bad. But then afterwards I realized, well. 08:20 Joshua Smith We weren't even going the right. 08:21 Joshua Smith So but I started working with my church and I got really involved and I I taught at the time the 5th grade boys were the hardest class to teach and so I said I'll do it. So I just I I was really trying to find places to serve in the church and I was also helping with the College Ministry and I. 08:39 Joshua Smith I had not really LED a whole lot of worship until then. I mean, I had some abilities, but I had not done it consistently, but I actually took on kind of leading the band for the college group and there was one night that I. 08:47 OK. 08:52 Joshua Smith This guy, he had had a tough life and done some things he wished he hadn't done. He just didn't know how God could forgive him. And I just remember encouraging him and really speaking life over him that hey, God is the God of redemption. And I remember driving home in my truck. I still had the the truck that I got in high school a little. 09:11 Joshua Smith Pickup truck and I remember singing to God and I would I would make up songs and this guy was just singing songs, making up songs. And as I was going home and I was singing, I started singing in another language and. 09:25 Joshua Smith I'd never seen that really. I've been around it, but I I had no desire to do it. There was no. It was really weird, but it was great and that, that that really. 09:34 Sean Finnegan You weren't put on the spot or had any expectation. Just kind of have it. 09:35 Joshua Smith No, it was. I was completely alone and I was driving, so obviously driving a car. I'm not. I I didn't lose control. It was. It was really beautiful. Honestly, I was listening to the the what I was saying, but I didn't understand it. And then I started studying the scriptures, you know. And and I started to realize that, man, it's real. And I was that kind of opened my eyes too. 09:56 Joshua Smith That just because I'm in a denomination that has certain things right, it doesn't mean they're right about everything. 10:02 Joshua Smith And that kind of opened my eyes to to really be open. 10:05 Sean Finnegan So originally you would you say you thought of yourself as a Baptist and then you thought of yourself as a Picasso or not really. 10:12 Joshua Smith No. So I think this happens to a lot of people, but if somebody who comes to faith in Christ, if they have a strong tradition that they grew up in, they just assumed it was all right. I I really think that's what happen. I don't know if that happens all the time. No, I said I and I got saved at a Pentecostal event. But I came back to my church and thought that the Southern Baptist. 10:26 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 10:26 Sean Finnegan Think that's pretty standard. 10:32 Joshua Smith Write about everything. But I didn't think about why did that particular movement reach me and my own church didn't. Not saying that they were wrong or it was all bad because it was a lot of great things. 10:42 Sean Finnegan You had this experience with the Pentecostals, but you were still primarily a Baptist and Baptist. Don't speak in tongues. 10:46 Joshua Smith Ohh yeah. 10:48 Sean Finnegan Typically so. 10:48 Joshua Smith No, they don't. Well, The funny thing is, the guy who was the new pastor there, I actually talked to him about this and he was a pastor in Miami, and they had a, you know, there's a lot of people there, a lot of churches, and he actually would pray with several pastors like 40 or 50 pastors. They do it once every two months or so. I don't remember the exact thing. 11:08 Joshua Smith But he said that he didn't do it, but a lot of his brothers that were Pentecostal would speak in tongues and pray in tongues, and he would not forbid it and he would not say they were. 11:17 Joshua Smith Long. 11:18 Joshua Smith And because he saw their life and he saw things, and he saw that I talked to a lot of people. But then there were people that said it's just hogwash. You know, my father actually grew up as a Pentecostal, not the snake handling, but like the country church jumping pews kind of Pentecostal. And so he did believe in tongues. And he talked to about it with one of our pastors growing up, and the pastor was just like. 11:38 Joshua Smith That's just hogwash. That's. 11:39 Joshua Smith He said. 11:41 Joshua Smith So you know it is what? 11:42 Sean Finnegan It is so as you continue your in your Christianity, you decided to go to college, a Christian college. Talk about that a. 11:50 Joshua Smith Little bit, yeah. So I got done with my associates degree. 11:54 Joshua Smith And there was a college called Word of Life that I went to 1st and it was, I don't know if I really intended to go into full time, Minister that time or not, but I didn't have any exact plans of where to go. And my great grandmother had left us some money, so I didn't have to pay for the college. So I went there for a year and they had a really cool. 12:13 Joshua Smith Program where it was light theological. 12:16 Joshua Smith Stuff. 12:17 Joshua Smith Albeit they still had a lot of reading, but it wasn't anything super super hard like, you know, you're writing these, you know, huge papers. You went to the whole Bible and at the end they had a summer camp where you, part of your process of going to the school was to be a counselor and to work with kids all summer. So you got to actually use it, share the gospel. And that was a really good time. 12:33 Yeah. 12:37 Joshua Smith For me, because I read the whole Bible during that time, I got very focused on what does God do. 12:43 Joshua Smith And whether I worked at a church or I was a part of some Christian group, I wanted to be the guy that was like Christ, that what is God doing here for me? Like, what does he want me to do? And that's I think where my journey at least opened up, where I was like, OK God, where are you sending me? What do you want me to do? I. 13:00 Joshua Smith I think I was very afraid. 13:02 Joshua Smith Of being a Pharisee, I see I wanted to be a Christ follower and at the end of my life I really wanted. 13:10 Joshua Smith To look back and see that I was led by God and I did what God wanted. 13:14 Joshua Smith I think too. I saw there's a lot of people that went to Christian colleges that are Christian that, you know, have a lot of labels. But when I looked at their life. 13:27 Joshua Smith I didn't see what I see in the New Testament Church. I didn't see, and I don't just mean miracles. I mean, like, just just complete devotion to God and the giving up of themselves to the church around them. 13:40 Joshua Smith And I wanted to do something that I I felt that God was in. 13:44 Sean Finnegan So what happened next? You finished word of life and then? 13:46 Joshua Smith Finished word of life and I went to Tennessee temple. The only reason I went there was because my best friend at the time his dad was the interim president. So it was like basically hey, you know, he asked me Josh, do you have any plans like? Well, no, I have no idea what I'm going to do. I really don't. I want to follow God. I need to make some money. I need to. You know, I need to figure out what I'm doing. 14:06 Joshua Smith And so I I basically went there and got a business degree, but in the process. Oh yeah, they had Chapel during the week. I got to sing a lot and and lead and things. And I still took a lot of Bible classes. So I still. And plus there was, you know, a whole library full of theology. I took Greek there. I took a a semester of Greek which, you know at least gave me a basic. 14:10 Sean Finnegan But it is a Christian School. 14:28 Joshua Smith Like you know, yeah, I finished. I finished up. 14:29 Sean Finnegan And you finished up your degree there bachelors degree. 14:32 Sean Finnegan Yeah. Talk about investigating the deity of Christ and how that whole topic came onto your radar cause it was while you're in school there, yeah. 14:41 Joshua Smith Yes, it was. What was there? Yeah, well, the interesting thing is I had been reading Daniel, not so much studying it, but the the idea that and and what happened with him praying and going out and praying to God every day despite of what the kings. 14:56 Joshua Smith Edict. It wasn't so much that nothing bad was said against me, but this idea of praying and asking God and in one of Daniel's prayer, he says show me the the hidden things. Before I started studying any of the things about the Trinity and Jesus being God and what that means and and the church history and and the development of a lot of these doctrines. 15:17 Joshua Smith In Daniel 2 verse 20 it says let the name of God be praised forever and ever for wisdom and power belong to him. He changes times and seasons, deposing some kings and establishing others. He gives wisdom to the wise. He imparts knowledge to those with understanding. He reveals deep and hidden things. He knows what is in the darkness and light resides with. 15:37 Joshua Smith Him. That passage really motivated me to pray, and it wasn't so much to have more than what other people were giving me. Maybe, but there was something I just knew there was something missing, you know? And I don't think any particular doctrine necessarily fixes everything, but I had this desire to know the truth. 15:58 Joshua Smith And I prayed this prayer. 16:01 Joshua Smith That was God. Show me the truth. No matter what it does to me. And I remember I remember that specifically praying that probably a week or two I just prayed. God, show me the truth, no matter what it does to me. Also, the persecuted church was really on my mind because, you know, a lot of those people that are in those really tough countries and areas they pray for God to use them, and sometimes they get tortured. Sometimes, you know, they would go through tough things. 16:24 Joshua Smith And I guess it was my way of saying, hey, God, you know, wherever you want to send me whatever you want me to do, I want to be willing to suffer like them. 16:30 Joshua Smith And I had no idea that it was going to take me down this path. I thought it was going to be, you know, I don't know. I don't know, you know, you you don't know what you don't know. And two weeks later, there was a security guard there that really like to talk about the Bible. And I talked to him all the time. And I use the phrase God, man all the time by Jesus, because that's what I was given. 16:50 Joshua Smith The God man, the God man. I didn't realize that the Bible never says that this security guard did not believe in in the Trinity. And I remember us talking. Somehow we got on the Trinity and he said this is the question he asked me. He said, hey, Josh is the father holy? And I said yes. 17:08 Joshua Smith As it is the father's spirit, I said yes, and then he said, well, then the father is Holy Spirit and when he said that it was very interesting to me because I realized in my Trinitarian formula I had three holy spirits because obviously the Holy Spirit is a Holy Spirit for the father is a Holy Spirit and Jesus is a Holy Spirit. That because Holy Spirit is a description. It's. 17:29 Joshua Smith Not so. It's like saying a strong man. 17:32 Sean Finnegan It's not a. 17:32 Joshua Smith Name. It's not a name, and I realized for the first time that wasn't. It's sort of like you had a formula for something and everything worked and you plugged in one that didn't work, and then, you know, in math, you know, you can have a function and everything. I plugged in before worked, but I didn't plug in. You know, I conveniently didn't realize, but I was plugging. 17:34 Yeah. 17:50 Joshua Smith In things that worked. 17:51 Joshua Smith But then I had something plugged in that just it just didn't work the the the function didn't work and in that case you know you have to go back and say, OK, this doesn't work for every number. You know, in this case this doesn't work for all these different this particular idea. 18:04 Joshua Smith And. 18:06 Joshua Smith I just started studying it and I asked this guy a lot of questions come to find out he he was a one God believer. You know, he believed Jesus was the unique virgin born human Messiah, son of God and it just led me down this path. It probably was two weeks where I did a lot of reading. I actually went into the at the time. 18:26 Joshua Smith He was the head of the Theology Department and I went in more as. 18:29 Joshua Smith Was a I didn't tell him I was questioning it because I wanted to. I I did this on purpose. I wanted to get all the information I could out of him and not think he was like. 18:37 Joshua Smith Trying to convince. 18:37 Sean Finnegan Me of to not do something. Well, did you already realize that this was something that people get very sensitive about and they would kick you out or? 18:44 Joshua Smith Yeah. Well, I I you understand, I mean, I knew it as soon as as soon as I started thinking about it, I was like, I know I'm not supposed to think about this. It wasn't in, like, an evil thing like it back in the in my earlier days when I did something sinful, I realized that if I study this. 19:00 Joshua Smith And it doesn't go the way that. 19:02 Joshua Smith A lot of people in my the organizations have been part of and. 19:07 Joshua Smith It's going to be a. 19:08 Joshua Smith Little. 19:08 Joshua Smith Weird. Yeah, and I think I thought, I don't know if I put all that together at the time, but again, I really have always had a desire to go for the truth, whatever that, whatever that is. I want to understand something. Forget politics, forget traditions, forget whatever it is. I really want to understand something because I think understanding. 19:27 Joshua Smith Leads to freedom, real freedom, and then you can really look at something and understand what what it. 19:33 Sean Finnegan Is. So what did this guy say to theologian guy? 19:35 Joshua Smith Well, at first he gave me this long list. 19:38 Joshua Smith Just. 19:39 Joshua Smith Which I asked him to of why Jesus was God and the interesting thing is that one of them, one of the big ones, he had a top ten one. 19:46 Joshua Smith Of them was. 19:46 Joshua Smith He did miracles and I I just. I remember immediately going what? That doesn't make any sense because then there's like 100 people in the Bible. They're all God, right. And I realized immediately that was one of the biggest ones. 20:00 Joshua Smith I realized there was like not as much thought put into this and I had the idea too that when things are ingrained. 20:08 Joshua Smith And you've been programmed to think a certain way. There's no thought. There's no logic behind it, right? It's just grandma told me to do it. Grandpa said that the chief said to do this, and I started to pick up. Maybe this is part of that. If that's really one of the aspects that they think this proves that Jesus was God or a deity. 20:18 Sean Finnegan Yeah. 20:28 Joshua Smith Or the same as God. I found that to be really kind of silly. That's not a good one to use. 20:35 Sean Finnegan While you were talking about that, it reminded me of the time that Paul and Barnabas were preaching, and they healed someone, and immediately the Pagan Hellenistic peoples started regarding them as gods. They had come down because of a miracle, so that's that's actually a Pagan response to a miracle, not a Christian. 20:50 Hmm. 20:53 Joshua Smith Yeah. 20:54 Sean Finnegan For our Jewish response of biblical response, biblical response is to say. 21:00 Sean Finnegan God has done great things through this person, through his prophet, God has visited his people through this prophet rather than saying, oh, this person must be God. So that's yeah or a God. 21:04 Hmm. 21:10 Joshua Smith Yeah, or a God rather. Yeah, that's even, you know, worse. Probably one of the most profound passages to me is first chronicles 29. And it's when David is inaugurating his son, Solomon. 21:26 Joshua Smith And so he does this whole long prayer and telling the people that this is the king and and it there's this just simple line where it says then all the people bowed down to Yahweh and the king and it was a really interesting thing because that was very powerful to me because I realized Solomon was standing. So he was standing. He did not bow. 21:46 Joshua Smith He was a man. He wasn't even a great man at the time. He had not done anything to prove good or not. It's just he was the. 21:51 Joshua Smith Man, that God had chosen to sit on David's throne, right, and all the people bowed before him. And I just thought about all the passages that have, especially in revelation where you have the people bowing down before the lamb and before God the father. And it just showed me that worship. There's something else with worship that I that I didn't understand. 22:13 Joshua Smith That was really powerful to me, that particular passage. 22:15 Sean Finnegan Yeah, the I don't know if this is the one you're thinking thinking of, but in first chronicles 2920, it says then David said to all the assembly, bless the Lord your God and all the assembly, bless the Lord, the God of their ancestors, and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before the Lord and. 22:30 Sean Finnegan The king and that these words, it says, bowed their head and prostrated. These are worship words. These are the same words used to worship. 22:35 Joshua Smith Yeah. 22:37 Joshua Smith God, I still have emotional responses to when I read the Gospels, and like that time that Jesus does the miracle with the fish and Peter bows down before him, says get away from me. Lord, I'm a sinful man. 22:50 Joshua Smith That's powerful because David recognized that this man. 22:54 Joshua Smith Had some relationship and some connection with God that he did not. Peter. Yeah. Peter. So Peter bowed down before Jesus, just like I'm supposed to do. Just like you're supposed to do. 22:59 Sean Finnegan You mean? 23:05 Right. 23:06 Joshua Smith Because we realize this man has access to God in a way that we don't. He lived because again, Peter would have thought of. 23:12 Sean Finnegan He's a holy he's a holy man. 23:13 Joshua Smith He's a holy man. Yeah, and and we we really missed that. And so there's there's a lot of connections that people make between worship and Jesus that I made that, you know, as I read through the whole Bible, I was like, well, if I read this passage and then. 23:27 Joshua Smith Came to Peter, who was Peter told to wait for the Messiah. A man coming that was going to. 23:33 Sean Finnegan Bring. Yeah, he wouldn't be expecting God to be no come Incarnate in human flesh and have two natures and a hypostatic union. 23:35 Yeah. 23:40 Sean Finnegan That's just all. 23:41 Sean Finnegan Foreign later ideas that the philosophers came up with, Peter wouldn't have any of. 23:46 Sean Finnegan That in his mind. 23:47 Joshua Smith No, he would have said man Messiah, son of David, did a miracle. 23:52 Joshua Smith One of the. 23:53 Joshua Smith Really big moments because I had a lot of moments when I I had come to this and I was back in certain Christian circles and I was my intent and I were up. I was listening to what people were saying, and I went back to a moment when I was in Bible College, when I had a different I didn't have this perspective and Luke. 24:13 Joshua Smith 2. 24:14 Joshua Smith I still remember our theological professor. He was a New Yorker. 24:18 Sean Finnegan So you're saying he's a good, good guy? Yeah. 24:19 Joshua Smith I guess so, I guess so. Now he's from, I think he's from the north. He kind of sounded like a New Yorker, but I don't know, maybe he could have been New Jersey. So I don't know. 24:25 Sean Finnegan You if you go far enough north. 24:26 Sean Finnegan You start sounding. 24:27 Joshua Smith Canadian. Yeah, he wasn't Canadian. 24:29 Sean Finnegan If you go far enough South, you start sounding like a New York City guy. 24:33 Joshua Smith Well, anyways, I remember we, we, we all read at at this the Bible College word of life. We all read the same scripture every day. We had the same devotion that day was Luke 2. And I remember the theological professor saying we we read this passage about Jesus growing in wisdom and in stature. 24:51 Joshua Smith And in favor with both God and. 24:52 Joshua Smith Man and he said I'll never forget this, he said I'll never understand how the God of the universe, the all powerful God could grow in wisdom and at the moment I was under that I had to say almost spell. I mean I I had this, like grandiose, euphoric feeling like, oh, that's just so unknowable. And I had this thought. 25:13 Joshua Smith But I've thought of that later and I realized, man, it really doesn't make any sense. You're trying to put something into something that just doesn't fit. 25:22 Joshua Smith If Jesus grew in wisdom, you know the the, the, the stature, you can kind of say, OK, that's just him saying he grew. Let's just give that, you know, he but wisdom and then in favor with both God and man. And that's the same thing was said of. 25:29 Sean Finnegan Yeah, yeah. He grew in height. 25:35 Sean Finnegan Samuel, how can you grow in favor with God if he is God? 25:36 Could he? 25:38 Joshua Smith If he is God and he already had a perfect. 25:40 Joshua Smith Relationship with God. 25:42 Sean Finnegan Oh man. 25:42 Joshua Smith And that was that was really profound cause I realized, man, I'd never thought about it. And now I just say, well, it's really easy. 25:47 Sean Finnegan He wasn't God. There are some Christians who don't believe in logic. 25:52 Sean Finnegan You know what I mean? And they're just like, you know what faith is what matters. Logic doesn't matter. It doesn't have to make sense. I stopped. 25:53 Joshua Smith Yeah. 26:00 Sean Finnegan Believe in it, but I'm a both and guy. You know what I mean? And I think you know, when it comes to like, for example, science and faith, I'm looking for both. I'm not looking. I'm not looking to to have the kind of faith that denies every single branch of science. 26:18 Sean Finnegan And I'm not looking for the kind of science that says there's no God. You know, I'm looking for both. And I, you know, and I think logic is right in there. And I think logic is actually God's gift to us. 26:29 Sean Finnegan As human beings, that is actually his servant to help us get rid of bad ideas, because bad ideas are like weeds and they can grow, and they confess her. But like, what is your tool to spot them? It's logic. And so we we apply logic in every other area of life confidently. 26:37 Hmm. 26:49 Sean Finnegan Yeah. You know, if if you go to the doctor and then you tell the doctor you have a pain in your head and you're and the doctor says, well, we should amputate your foot. What? What kind of person would just go with that and just put blind faith in the doctor? No. You'd say I would need a second opinion. That doesn't make sense. 27:04 Hmm. 27:04 Sean Finnegan That if my head hurts, it's really my foot that you need to cut off. That doesn't make any sense. And so we allow logic to serve us in every other area. But when it comes to theology specifically, the incarnation and the two natures and the interpersonal workings of the Trinity, suddenly we're like, oh, we can sort of like, have this emotional moment where we transcend. 27:27 Sean Finnegan Logic and we say ohh isn't it just so amazing that it doesn't make sense and it's like whoa, I don't know. I get nervous. 27:33 Joshua Smith With that, people get kind of angry sometimes, but I wouldn't say angry people get emotional. I'm not gonna say angry, just they have emotional response when now I would raise things like. 27:43 Joshua Smith You know, James says God can't be tempted, but it's very clear that Jesus was tempted not only in the desert, but in in wilderness, but multiple times. You know, he didn't know something. Yeah, you know, and if he didn't know one thing, he's probably other things. 27:48 Sean Finnegan Absolutely in all. 27:50 Sean Finnegan Points as we are yet without sin. 27:56 Joshua Smith He didn't know. 27:57 Joshua Smith Right. Of course. You people make the case that, you know, he didn't know who touched him, right? You know, with the lady and and some people say. 28:02 Sean Finnegan Yeah, well, he said. Who touched me. 28:03 Joshua Smith Yeah, he said. Who touched me? He if he's God and God knows all that there is to be known, right? Well then. 28:09 Joshua Smith Jesus can't at the same time not know, and then the the biggest thing is you know the death part. A lot of Christians don't really understand that the Orthodox position and any position that you have, if you think Jesus is God, you actually don't believe that God died. Now you may say that in a sense, like you say, well, well, he died. 28:28 Joshua Smith As a man. Well, OK, so then he part of him didn't die. And and if he was God and in a man, the God part's a little more prominent. Right. That's the. 28:36 Joshua Smith Eternal logos, or the Eternal Christ that's not changing. Right? So again, you're back to the same Orthodox view. Even if you try to have your own little unique niche view, you have a view that says that the human flesh died, but God did not die then. And then I asked who died, who died. 28:55 Sean Finnegan At Calvary right, it was just the. 28:56 Sean Finnegan Nature. The human nature. 28:59 Sean Finnegan But what's more valuable, the snakeskin, or the snake, the actual person, or the shell that the person sheds on the cross, right? It it doesn't seem that valuable to me. And like I would say, just like a normal human being, even a simple human being, that death would be more valuable than the death of a human nature. 29:12 Joshua Smith And then. 29:20 Sean Finnegan That is not the equivalent to the value of a human. 29:23 Joshua Smith Person I came in with a love for Yeshua of Nazareth. Yeah, he was a man who laid down his. 29:29 Joshua Smith Life for me there is this, this, you know Paul uses. He says it's a mystery how the church and Christ are becoming one and are one. That. That's a mystery. That is. That's the mystery that is being unfolded, you know, in the church and and now not Jews, not Greek. But we're one body and and Jesus is this glue this person that's bringing all these things together. 29:50 Joshua Smith And doing the work of God. But I love a Jewish man that died from a 2000 years ago and was resurrected. 29:58 Joshua Smith He died knowing that he was saving the people with him and all the people in the past, and all the people that were coming before him, right, he and and again I love what he says, where he says no greater love hath a man than he. 30:09 Joshua Smith Laid down. 30:09 Joshua Smith His life? Mm-hmm. He proved it. I I love a Jewish man Messiah who died and was resurrected and is now exalted. 30:18 Joshua Smith And my faith is that if I follow him, I'm going to end up in the same place with immortality, perfect relationship with God. 30:24 Joshua Smith Peace. My enemies destroyed. Not that you know we love people now, but I mean the idea that I'm not going to have if they. 30:29 Sean Finnegan Well, if they choose not to. 30:30 Sean Finnegan Turn. 30:31 Joshua Smith Choose not to turn yeah. Further, they would turn and that. 30:31 Sean Finnegan I mean we. 30:33 Joshua Smith They wouldn't be spared. Yeah. And you know, and one thing too, I don't think that like, for instance, before I had this revelation, I don't think I was not a Christian. I think I was on a journey to know God and. 30:35 Sean Finnegan Absolutely. 30:45 Joshua Smith Who am I? I'm just a guy. I'm just just a guy that's you know, 30-4 years old trying to figure things out, read the scriptures, go. 30:51 Joshua Smith To life, I don't judge people. I I don't. I'm not going to look at other people and judge their relationship with God. I had real miraculous things happen in my life, and God led me to share his word and his love with people. Before I came to. 31:04 Joshua Smith This. 31:05 Joshua Smith I know that it has relinquished a lot of things that didn't make any sense to me. It has given me more faith. 31:13 Joshua Smith I can 100% tell an atheist or an agnostic, or a Jew, or somebody else that I believe with full confidence that a human being died was dead, but was raised again because God chose him and he loves you and me and he knows what it's like and he wants to help us find God's will. 31:32 Sean Finnegan And that gives us greater confidence in evangelism that we don't have this really embarrassing weak spot, that we're afraid people are going to find if they start asking us complicated questions about how to now explain. 31:44 Sean Finnegan It to me, how did God die again? I. 31:45 Sean Finnegan Thought the Bible said he's immortal. 31:48 Sean Finnegan You know that could get real awkward real fast and you don't have that weakness. So that's that's a blessing. 31:54 Joshua Smith One of the biggest reasons that really pushed me over the edge to dive into thinking about the identity of Jesus was the gospel as presented in the scriptures, especially the sermons. 32:08 Joshua Smith So obviously the gospel is technically throughout the whole Bible, right? Jesus said in John. Is it 5 where he said the whole all the scriptures bear witness to me? I think it's 5. 32:18 Joshua Smith Either way, he says, all the scriptures bear witness to me, so the gospels everywhere, Jesus, coming, dying, being born, coming on the scene, doing miracles, all these things, and then Isaiah 53, the suffering servant, is there. The Jews still don't know exactly what to do with that. 32:34 Joshua Smith So when I when I say the gospel, I mean the actual sermons where they priest preached the, you know, Evangelion, the good news of God to people, especially the very beginning. 32:46 Joshua Smith And what I found was that they stopped and only said certain things that I found. It bothered me. One of my favorite passages, and actually has my favorite verse in Acts 1038 and says, you know how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit, how he went about doing good healing, all who were oppressed of the devil. 33:06 Joshua Smith For God was with him. 33:08 Hmm. 33:09 Joshua Smith That verse was my favorite verse before I started thinking about this. Anytime I see 1038 like a number or or clock, I always think about it and I always think God's with me. You know, God was with him. Peter is saying that Jesus did all these great things because he was a man and that God was with him. And it doesn't say. 33:29 Joshua Smith God, I just found that really profound and it kind of it bothered me in the sense that it didn't click with what I I had so for so long had in my mind why Jesus was an amazing person, why he was the person I wanted to follow. So in this whole process, I never lost my desire to become like Christ. 33:50 Joshua Smith And to worship him and love him. But what I found is OK, well, why does the scripture command us to do this? Why did Jesus change the world? Why is it 2024, you know, and not five? Thousands. Whatever. The Jews their calendar. What? Like what? What happened there that's significant for people to. 34:08 Joshua Smith Realized he made such a big impact, and especially in the in the gospel presentation by the apostles. So you've got like acts to acts 10 acts 17 there's acts 13. 34:21 Joshua Smith They're all kind of similar, you know? Peter preaches some of them and Paul preaches some. 34:26 Joshua Smith They're all very similar. They have the same idea, but they they'll go with this idea that God raised up from the descendant of David, which again, I'm like, why did God have to go through the descendant of David? It's very it's the specific human lineage and it always says something to the effect that God raised him up. God empowered him. God led him. He died. 34:46 Joshua Smith God raised him from. 34:47 Joshua Smith Dead. 34:48 Joshua Smith There's no place in all those gospel presentations where one of the apostles, which is as close as you get to it, they all saw Jesus. Paul saw him on the road to Damascus, but they all saw him had direct contact. As a Christian, I believe, and 97% of all Christians think Paul and Peter and all them actually wrote scripture. 35:08 Joshua Smith Actually have given us the word of God. Yeah. And in acts we have these places where they can just let. 35:14 Joshua Smith Rip. They have all the miracles they God is working. They have complete confidence in what they're saying and we know we know right now we try to be spirit filled. But you know, we're not always spirit filled. Men sometimes speak of their own accord, but we believe because this is written down, this is spirit filled, right. But all these times. 35:20 Sean Finnegan And their spirit filled. It says that over and over, they're filled with the spirit. 35:35 Joshua Smith You have very clear places where God through these people say that he raised up a man and yet they use David too. They'll use David and then they go to Jesus and they don't say it's any different. They say they raised up Jesus, he raised him. 35:48 Joshua Smith Up he preached good news, but then he was killed and then he was raised and Act 17 is probably one of my favorites because, you know, I was someone who did a lot of evangelism. I did a lot of evangelism before, like, right when I got into Bible school. And then even when I went to Tennessee temple when I was. 36:07 Joshua Smith There for a little bit. 36:08 Joshua Smith I just. I like street evangelism, and I just like talking to people in general. Yeah, relationship. I like bridging that gap. And hey, what do you think about God and act 17? I always found a lot of encouragement from because Paul used the culture of the day. You know, he uses the unknown God and he says, hey, let me proclaim this God to. 36:27 Joshua Smith And it's amazing that he proclaims the unknown God. He says nothing about 3:00 and 1:00. So no Trinity, no multiplicity in the Godhead, says nothing, always talks about him in the singular personal, grammatical way. 36:41 Joshua Smith But then also doesn't say it's Jesus, so he just he goes the God who made the world and everything in it is Lord of Heaven and Earth and does not live in temples built by human hands, right? All throughout the Old Testament this is who God is. 36:54 Joshua Smith But then it goes down and you know, Paul uses a little poem. He's, which is cool. He uses culture. And I love that. Like I realized in evangelism, I've got to use culture to reach people. But then he goes and he says he has said a day who, God, when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone. 37:14 Joshua Smith By raising him from the dead. 37:16 Joshua Smith And that was really powerful to me because another thing that I realized happened, and this actually did make me angry and frustrated more of myself. But I came to the conclusion that I had been convinced or deceived. Really. If I mean, if I'm honest, deceived that God died. 37:36 Joshua Smith And I was really challenged by that because that one aspect of Jesus dying being a man who actually died and was raised by God, that the gospel is that. 37:49 Joshua Smith For God's love, the world that he gave his only begotten son, right, so God gave his son. But God raised him on the third day, and I realized the gospel according to the apostles is not that God came down and became a man. But is that God chose a man empowered a man as a descendant of David, set him on the throne of David. 38:10 Joshua Smith But he died before he did that, just like Jesus said. And I believe it was Luke 24. Do you not know that the Christ must suffer in order to enter into his glory? He suffered, but then he was raised. 38:21 Joshua Smith I realized too for the first time that I really believed that a man died and was resurrected to everlasting life, to immortality, and in Romans 6 verse eight it says now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. 38:43 Joshua Smith For the death he died. He died to sin once for all. And the life he lives, he lives to God. 38:48 Joshua Smith And then he says, consider yourself dead to sin. So Jesus at one time was mastered by death. He had not defeated it. He had not overcome it. He I'll albeit he was perfect, but he had not been brought into a glorified state. Right. And it says now he lives to God. Right. And that's a picture of me and you and and Christians. And I just realized. 39:10 Joshua Smith That this idea that I had that I'd never thought about, and somehow Jesus was God in a strict like he is God. But then at the same time he was man. 39:21 Joshua Smith It made no sense. I had a friend. He actually went back into the Trinitarian view, but for a while he was on the same wavelength with me. He actually told me. He said, you know, Josh, when I listen to people talk. 39:33 Joshua Smith About the Trinity. 39:34 Joshua Smith It's beautiful. They just described this relationship all the I would say. Great. Not that it's true, but very great. Very thought out things. 39:41 Joshua Smith People have presented to explain God's complexity and yet oneness. 39:47 Joshua Smith Something can be beautiful and be wrong. I mean, you know, it's, you know, and. But that being said, he said I when people share it and they preach it, I go man, that's so beautiful. But he says then when I read the Bible, I go where is it? And I remember that was really big to me because I remember I had actually asked him, hey, read acts one through 4. 40:07 Joshua Smith You know, and just tell me what you think they thought all the sermons, the gospel, and again, me being somebody who I wanted to preach the gospel. Cause that's what I was commanded to do. I wasn't great at it. I sucked at it. At first I was terrible, but I wanted to do it because God had commanded me to preach the gospel. 40:23 Joshua Smith And when I started to dig into this subject, the identity Jesus God the what is the gospel? I realize that the gospel is not that God came down from heaven and entered into a human body to die for my sins. That's not what they preached. I still when I go back and I, you know, I I think men. 40:43 Joshua Smith What a small little group of people that I that I we're small. I I love us. I love the people, I love all the Christians and the brothers and sisters here, but we're very small little group. 40:53 Joshua Smith And you know, sometimes I just, I think man am I, am I right? Am I going down the right path and I go back and I read those sermons and and I you know those other places but the sermons and I say what is the gospel what is the good news what when I stand before God and give an account what do I say this is what I believed for my justification. 41:12 Joshua Smith And it's not believe that Jesus is God become a man. It's believed that he's the Christ, the Messiah, the son of. 41:17 Joshua Smith God and that he lived a perfect life. He died and God raised him from the dead. And then he now sits the right hand of God and he is our inner cedar. He's the head of the church. He leads us. He's our king. 41:29 Joshua Smith He's our Lord and. 41:30 Joshua Smith He's coming back and he's coming back and yeah. 41:32 Sean Finnegan So some good news there too. So it's not the God, man, but the man that God empowered, anointed with his spirit, right. 41:38 Joshua Smith Yeah. And now that same man who has the power of God acts two. He now pours that power into us. Other men and women. 41:48 Sean Finnegan Something you said made me think your typical evangelical who is out. 41:54 Sean Finnegan Evangelizing maybe just talking to a friend or a coworker. 42:00 Sean Finnegan If they only said what you just said, you know what the book of Acts says they would feel inadequate. 42:08 Sean Finnegan They would feel like I haven't really presented the whole gospel because I haven't said anything about how. 42:17 Sean Finnegan God became a man. 42:19 Sean Finnegan You know what I mean? In other words, like if you take the Bible as your only standard for for the content of the evangelistic message, if you take the Bible as your only standard for what the gospel is, then you would be judged as being inadequate by evangelical or Catholic Christianity Today. 42:20 Yeah. 42:39 Sean Finnegan Because you're not talking about the. 42:42 Sean Finnegan I think that's awkward because as evangelicals, they want to say the phrase sola scriptura, like, just Scripture alone is where my authority is. But then they add to scripture this other doctrine that's not presented as gospel. I mean, you can argue what from John one and Philippians 2 the incarnation. 42:48 Joshua Smith Yeah. 43:01 Sean Finnegan Yes you can, but it's not precious gospel, John. One is an introduction. The word of God is not necessarily. 43:08 Sean Finnegan The son? Well, it depends on how you interpret it. And in Philippians too, he's talking to existing Christians and the form of God is clearly not the same as God because you don't say I'm in the form of someone else if you are. 43:10 Joshua Smith That's. 43:17 Hmm. 43:20 Joshua Smith That other person you say you you are the very person you are you. 43:24 Joshua Smith Yeah. 43:24 Sean Finnegan And I don't think nature works there too, but regardless, just hold those two to the side, which I think are. 43:29 Sean Finnegan A really disputable text and I'm sure. 43:31 Sean Finnegan You've thought about it. 43:32 Joshua Smith A lot people, people always ask, but have you read, John? One? I've read it quite a bit and thought a lot about it and have a lot. 43:38 Yeah. 43:39 Joshua Smith Of ideas and but. 43:40 Sean Finnegan Yeah, it's it's an interesting section for sure. But hold holding all that to the side for a moment. We returned back to the gospel presentations, which is where you were putting your theological stake in the ground in the scripture, we don't see incarnation language in the gospel presentations in the book of Acts in times where. 44:00 Sean Finnegan Jesus. 44:01 Sean Finnegan Preaches to people says follow me. He doesn't say believe I was once living in heaven and now I'm metamorphosed into a human. There's none of that. Right. So I. 44:03 Joshua Smith Or even. 44:11 Sean Finnegan Think that is what makes. 44:11 Joshua Smith Well, even even in Roman, even in Romans, right, that there's, I know there's places where they, you know, different people have different passages. They they think teach certain things like the deity of Christ or the divinity of of Jesus. But. 44:25 Joshua Smith Romans justification is what believing that God through a man has given us redemption, and we now receive the spirit of God because of what a man did. One man, Romans. Five, one man, you know, brought us into sin. Another man brought us out. The biggest thing that keeps people from just looking into this is they think if I just think he's a man then. 44:45 Joshua Smith I'm demoting him and I can't worship him. And how can I trust he was perfect? How can I trust anything? And I would just say, really, I think that there's a lot you could say. But John, 14 Jesus says you believe in God. 45:00 Joshua Smith Believe also in me. Paul had the passion and belief to go out and preach the gospel and the way that he did, because just like he said in Act 17, he says he's proven it. He says God is going to judge the world through this man that he has appointed. He's proven it by what raising him from the dead. You know, we're called to trust the elders and the leaders in our church. 45:21 Joshua Smith Not not to the point of their, you know, Geo status, but right, we're supposed to trust them. That's because God has set it up that way, right? Right. And we have, obviously we have ways that we can keep people accountable and. 45:32 Joshua Smith All good, but at the end of the day, we trust the way that God has set up the church and the way that in this case Christ has set up the church because God gave him authority to do it right. Well, if God shows, Christ said he's perfect, said he's a good, loving, righteous man and he raised him from the dead. I trust God that that's true. 45:52 Joshua Smith It's still the same principle that led me to Christ when I was a very at a young age. I trust that what God has said in his word is true. So I trust that what God has said about. 46:00 Sean Finnegan His son is true, right? You're trusting in the script. 46:04 Sean Finnegan There for your source of Christology, you're not trusting in the philosophers of the 4th century. You're not trusting in Neoplatonism, you're not trusting in. 46:14 Sean Finnegan Some sort of domestic theory of how to work out the dual natures. You're you're just like, alright, I'm just gonna go all the way back to the sources to the New Testament books themselves and see what they say. And they don't talk like modern Christians. So you're a Restorationist. You're trying to recover authentic Christianity. 46:32 Joshua Smith They didn't talk like me. 46:34 Joshua Smith Yeah, they didn't talk like me and I and I think another thing that's really powerful is that. 46:40 Joshua Smith Again, Acts 1038, Peter could have said, you know how God entered into the man Christ and became man and proved that he was man by defeating the Devil at every place. 46:52 Joshua Smith Doesn't say that it's this really awesome passage. Amazing, profound passage where he says he did all these good things because God was with him. 47:10 Sean Finnegan Well, I'm going to cut it off there for this week and we'll hear the rest of Joshua's story next week as he talks more about youth ministry and coming on staff to work at living Hope. 47:22 Sean Finnegan Which I'm very excited about, so stay tuned for that if you have any thoughts or comments though on this part of the interview, come on over to restitutio.org. It's like the word restitution with no N and find episode 558. Courageous Baptist seeks biblical true. 47:39 Sean Finnegan And leave your thoughts there. Now on a previous episode, 556 recruiting Ancients for the creation debate. 47:48 Sean Finnegan An interview I did with Australian Old Testament professor Andrew Brown. 47:53 Sean Finnegan John wrote in saying I found your recent podcast with Andrew Brown very interesting. I appreciate the work he put in that he found that most early church fathers had a Neoplatonic worldview was hardly surprising. I was left with many questions though. Number. 48:09 Sean Finnegan One, do you tell your guests that you are a Unitarian? It was obvious that Brown is a Trinitarian and you didn't seem to mention your own beliefs. 48:20 Sean Finnegan No, I did not bring up the fact that I am a Unitarian to Professor Andrew Brown because it wasn't germane to our conversation. I also didn't mention to him that I believe in literal obedience to the commands of Jesus. I I'm an Anabaptist. 48:37 Sean Finnegan Or that I believe in the Kingdom coming on Earth, that I'm an Adventist, or that I believe the dead or asleep. That is that I'm a conditionalist or that I don't believe in eternal conscious torment. Because I think the wicked are destroyed. I'm an annihilationist. 48:52 Sean Finnegan And so on and so forth. Some Christians are a little sensitive and quite honestly bigoted. On the whole Unitarian versus Trinitarian subject. So generally, I'm not going to poke that hive of bees if it has nothing to do with our. 49:10 Sean Finnegan Certainly, if if there's a reason to bring it up, I do bring it up. But if somebody goes to the rest of to your website, I think they'll be able to figure out many of my beliefs pretty easily. My question to you, John, is why are you asking me if I tell my guests that I'm a Unitarian? Is it because? 49:29 Sean Finnegan You think only Unitarians have valid points? I don't. I don't think you think that is it because you think that Unitarian should always tell everyone else that they're a Unitarian? Or is it? 49:45 Sean Finnegan Just a matter of curiosity, I don't know. I mean, it just seems like a weird question for you to ask in the context of the topic of creation and what ancient Christians believed about creation, which was the interview subject. But anyhow, you go on to ask question #2 you seem to be taking the position. 50:05 Sean Finnegan That Genesis 1 isn't a literal history of the creation of the universe we live in today. 50:11 Sean Finnegan But is in fact a religious myth similar to other local religions. Origin stories? Is that correct? I'm going to go ahead and assume, John, that you're asking this question of me as opposed to Andrew Brown. I think I could answer that for Andrew Brown, that he is definitely not taking Genesis in a literal way. If you're curious what? 50:30 Sean Finnegan I think I'm trying to figure it out in all honesty and that's why I did this interview because I am interested in what Christians throughout the ages have said about whether or not young earth or older earth, or how they conceived of Genesis one in particular. 50:47 Sean Finnegan And so yeah, it's it's very much a live question for me. I personally grew up with a gap theory understanding, which is old Earth and then later changed my teenage years. Once like Ken Ham and the answers in Genesis, people really got cranking stuff out in the United States. I jumped to a young Earth creationist. 51:07 Sean Finnegan Point of view and was able to get somewhat decent answers to the science questions I had at the time. 51:15 Sean Finnegan But not all. And I was kind of in that camp for a while, but I've since then returned to more of an old Earth view, although I'm not entirely sure about. It would certainly be happy to learn more, so I have an open mind on this subject I interviewed Pastor will Barlow about this at some length and asked him some questions about. 51:38 Sean Finnegan And I'm still trying to see what system works best when it comes to young Earth creationism. There's a lot of science stuff that the young Earth creationists usually avoid, which is unfortunate. 51:50 Sean Finnegan I think it. 51:51 Sean Finnegan Would be helpful to sort of answer the obvious objections. The ice core. 51:57 Sean Finnegan Layers issue the salinization of the ocean. The dust on the moon, the radiometric dating of rocks of carbs. 52:09 Sean Finnegan And and various other geologic phenomena that are well understood or presumably well understood. This is not just one line of evidence here. We're talking about quite a bit of convergence on an older Earth than 6000 years. So. And. And look, I get it from the other side too. I get evolutionists. 52:30 Sean Finnegan Who are questioning me saying ohh, why don't you believe in evolution? Why? Why don't you? 52:35 Sean Finnegan I think that the missing links have all been filled in and and so on and so forth. And I say to them the same thing I say to the younger christianists like, look, I have an open mind. Show me the evidence. I would love to see how you work out your perception with Scripture and how you overcome these scientific objections to evolution or the. 52:57 Sean Finnegan Scientific objections to Old Earth and and weigh it all out. So that's kind of where I'm coming from. So yeah, I'm not answering whether or not I think Genesis one is literal history or not. I I would say I'm open. 53:11 Sean Finnegan On that, it certainly seems to have a poetic framework to it, with lots of repetition. It's certainly not poetry in any kind of obvious sense, but it is highly stylized prose, much more stylized than other parts of Genesis. I'll just say it that way, and that may be an indication. 53:32 Sean Finnegan That we're dealing with something that's not meant to be taken literally, but I'm not committing to that one way or the other in all honesty. 53:41 Sean Finnegan Question #3 is in Exodus 20, the author makes a claim that Moses was on top of Mount Sinai with a being who declared himself to be Jehovah. He claims in this passage for six days the Lord made heaven and Earth and the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the 7th day. Wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. 54:02 Sean Finnegan I think that you just went King James on me there. This is really the major young Earth creationist proof text and and I do also like to ask this of people espousing an old Earth theory. What does this mean? And so they there are a few different views on that. I think the Hugh Ross folks will just say yeah six days you know. 54:22 Sean Finnegan But the days are really ages. They're really long periods of time. 54:27 Sean Finnegan But then the young Earth Creationist says, well, then, is the Sabbath a long period of time, and to which everyone, of course, would. And since, say no, it's 24 hours, but there's also another sense in which God Sabbaths, God rests really from the ending of creation itself in Genesis. 54:46 Sean Finnegan Too, so that might be something that. 54:48 Sean Finnegan Better, but yeah, I'm not sure how to interpret Exodus. Chapter 20 was part of the 10 Commandments on the Sabbath. The 4th Commandment, let me just put this out there to you listeners, if you are an old Earth creationist of some sort, whether gap or day, age or. 55:08 Sean Finnegan Progressive creation, or whatever other kind of old Earth person you are. 55:12 Sean Finnegan Why don't you come on to restitutio.org and find episode 556 recruiting Ancients for the creation debate and give your interpretation of this text from Exodus 20 in the comments, I would be very interested to see what people think about that. It's a good one to bring up. 55:32 Sean Finnegan Question #4 and X is 31. This person who claims to be Jehovah reiterates the Sabbath rest day and at the end of the chapter it is claimed that Jehovah wrote the covenants including the 6th day claim with his own finger on stone. Could you explain your take on this moment? Which part of this story are you claiming is inaccurate or perhaps misunderstood? 55:52 Sean Finnegan If in fact you don't believe in. 55:54 Sean Finnegan A literal creation. 55:55 Sean Finnegan One week. 55:56 Sean Finnegan Well, I don't dispute anything there. I think that is just fine. #5 you ask? Perhaps I am mistaken, but it is my understanding that the Hebrews name of the days of the week, day one, day, 2, day three, and then he transliterated some Hebrew and asks the question, why did they think the correct name for the first day of the week was one? 56:18 Sean Finnegan John, I don't know the answer to that. Moving on to the next question, number six, in Matthew 19, Jesus is quoted as saying, have you not read, he created them in the beginning, made them male and female and so on and so forth. Did Jesus believe Genesis one was literal? Well, I think that's from Genesis 2 John. And that's not really the dispute. 56:38 Sean Finnegan Question #7 Genesis 129 to 30, Jehovah gives plants and green herbs to animals for food, and the fossil record. We have lots of evidence of animals eating other animals. We also see cancer and tumors in the fossil. 56:54 Sean Finnegan If the fossil record shows life before Adam, wouldn't that make Genesis 1 inaccurate? Did God intend for there to be cancer in his original creation? I'm not a fossil record expert. I don't really know much about the fossil record. In all honesty, I tend to focus more on Bible history theology. 57:14 Sean Finnegan Pastoral ministry. 57:16 Sean Finnegan Apologetics. A little bit and so forth just don't have the knowledge. 57:21 Sean Finnegan And biology to. 57:23 Sean Finnegan To get into this. Actually, I didn't even know that cancer or tumors could show up in the fossil records. This is this is somewhat new. 57:29 Sean Finnegan To. 57:29 Sean Finnegan Me. Did God intend there to be cancer in his original creation? I would think not. I would think the original creation things would be balanced. 57:38 Sean Finnegan Cancers like where cells just get out of control and multiply like crazy. So I'm going to say. 57:43 Sean Finnegan No original creation was good. Good, good, good, good. And did not have cancer in it. I would think cancer was a consequence of the fall. So that would be where I'm coming from on that from a meta narrative perspective, question #8 out of 10, we're just getting to the end here. If God created the original creation with death mutation. 58:03 Sean Finnegan Cancer violence in the animal Kingdom when he restores creation to its original design. Want all of those things to be present as well? I think I just disagree with the question. I don't think God created the original creation with death, mutation, cancer and violence in the animal Kingdom. So I I don't have a problem with. 58:21 Sean Finnegan John, you may be asking these questions of Andrew. I'm not sure I'm answering them as if you're asking them of me, I don't believe these things. So it's really hard for me to answer it. But I do know that there are listeners to this show who believe in theistic evolution. They believe that God created the world to have. 58:41 Sean Finnegan Death, mutation, cancer and violence in the animal Kingdom from the beginning as your your question lays out. So once you guys come on to episode 556, recruiting the ancients for the creation debate and answer question #8. 58:54 Sean Finnegan If you are an evolutionist, a Christian evolutionist, come on and answer to that question. You know, we'll get the young Earth creationists in there answering the question about excess 20. We'll get the old Earth evolutionists in there answering question #8 that John asked about mutation and and violence in the animal Kingdom prior to the fall and. 59:14 Sean Finnegan We'll see if we can get some better understanding. 59:16 Sean Finnegan Here question #9 does the fact that Augustine believed torturing people until they agreed with church theology. Calvin was complicit in the murder of Servetus, and Luther was such a Jew hater that his last book was used as the framework for Nazi Germany's campaign against them matter? 59:35 Sean Finnegan Should we look at them as people who had a good understanding of the Bible? 59:40 Sean Finnegan Hmm, that's a very loaded question. OK, does it matter for what? 59:45 Sean Finnegan Doesn't matter that Adolf Hitler wore pants and therefore all people should never wear pants. Wear shorts. 59:55 Sean Finnegan You can wear a dress. You can wear a tunic, but you can never wear pants because it all Hitler wore pants and Adolf Hitler was evil. And so everything he did is tainted. And it was all wrong. And he also ate peanut butter and therefore peanut butter is evil. I I just don't think. 1:00:09 Sean Finnegan This. 1:00:10 Sean Finnegan Way of arguing is helpful. 1:00:12 Sean Finnegan I think you do have a valid point about morality when it comes to Augustine and Calvin and Luther. This is actually an interesting point that Suzanne Lakin made as well in the interview I did with her, and it is a valid critique and I I certainly wouldn't want to dodge that. I think Augustine has done a lot of that. 1:00:33 Sean Finnegan For Christian theology, and so is Calvin. And so as Luther. But at the same time, to say they didn't understand the Bible at all. I mean, come on, Augustine really struggled. No honesty to understand the Bible because of his Neo Platonism. I think Calvin had a much better grasp of scripture. 1:00:50 Sean Finnegan But at the same time, his doctrinal system did blur the lens through which he perceived scripture, and certainly luthers faults. You've already mentioned what I've heard with Luther is that early on he was actually like, really optimistic about Jewish people in Europe and was thinking that once he reformed Christianity. 1:01:11 Sean Finnegan Away from the Catholic accretions that had. 1:01:16 Sean Finnegan Head. 1:01:17 Sean Finnegan Caked onto the original trues over the period of the Middle Ages that then the Jews would see that and they would be like, oh, this is what I've been looking for. Towards the end of his life, when that became apparent that the Jews did not in fact embrace Christianity, he did lash out in very inappropriate and ungodly ways. But to to blame. 1:01:37 Sean Finnegan Luther for the Nazis. Come on, you can't. You can't do that. You can't say. Ohh. This guy is upset at the Jews and therefore he's complicit in a genocide by somebody's living. What, 4 centuries later? 1:01:52 Sean Finnegan That doesn't seem right. I mean, you could give him some responsibility, but it's not like he said to do the sorts of things that Adolf Hitler did, at least at least. 1:02:00 Sean Finnegan Not. 1:02:00 Sean Finnegan To my knowledge, so there you have it. And then last of all question #10 was someone reading the Bible without a modern understanding of science. See in it millions of years of death and mutation in order to arrive at. 1:02:12 Sean Finnegan The Garden of Eden. 1:02:14 Sean Finnegan Well, since the Bible doesn't talk about what happened before the Garden of Eden, I think that's an impossible question to answer. I will say this though, that we do have this assumption that that there is this modern understanding of science. OK, there's always been an understanding of science. There's always been. 1:02:34 Sean Finnegan A cosmology is the word I would prefer to use cosmology and cosmogony. Cosmology is your understanding of what the world is. 1:02:43 Sean Finnegan Do you think the earth is flat? Do you think the Earth is round? Do you think that stars are living creatures or do you think they're pinpricks in the pleroma that let the light of another realm into our world? I mean, what's your cosmology? 1:03:00 Sean Finnegan And there are lots of different cosmologies, and our own cosmologies radically different than what was around 200 years ago, and that was radically different than what was around 200 years before that. And in 200 years from now, they're going to look back at us. They're going to say they had no clue the true nature of the universe. They didn't even realize how it was put together, how it works. 1:03:21 Sean Finnegan And then cosmogony how it began. And scientists kind of drive me nuts on this because they're, like, so obsessed with, like, getting to, like, the smallest fraction of a second right after the initial explosion that begins everything. And they think, ohh, we really know so much, but they don't know what started it. And we as Christians. 1:03:41 Sean Finnegan So who started it? That in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 1:03:45 Sean Finnegan But beyond that, we're all pretty ignorant exactly how God did that and what was there before and what was around before the earth. 1:03:57 Sean Finnegan A lot of that to me seems like speculation. Ohh, we think this is how solar systems develop and so on and so forth, but again, I'm not an astrophysicist. You're taking me outside of my knowledge here to even talk about that. And so I want to be at least a little bit humble here and say look. 1:04:16 Sean Finnegan I don't know a lot. 1:04:17 Sean Finnegan About these modern theories on science, I do have a scientific background originally. 1:04:26 Sean Finnegan But science changes all the time, and when they put the new telescope in outer space, they were just like what this totally undoes so much that we thought was this other way. And and that's the way science is. It's just always changing. I would say to listeners who are interested in this subject because this is probably going to be the last conversation about it. 1:04:46 Sean Finnegan For a little while here on rest studio, if you are interested in the subject of creation and of science and of evolution and all that, check out the series will Barlow did, called Scripture and Science, where he really goes through a lot of these issues. 1:04:59 Sean Finnegan And gives you at least the different Christian options that people have settled on over the years and that, I think will at least inform you that people that hold a different view than you are not evil or or crazy or. 1:05:15 Sean Finnegan Ignorant and they do have their reasons for holding it, and you have your reasons, and this is an area where I think we should have freedom in Christ to be able to explore and figure stuff out. I think that God is the Creator, is a Christian, non-negotiable and a Jewish non-negotiable. And we could also argue a Muslim non. 1:05:34 Sean Finnegan But sitting with Christianity because I am a Christian, that God created the universe absolutely, that God created humanity, that God created humanity. Absolutely. How exactly he did that. That is really where all the debates come in. So we would love to hear lots of feedback on this. Once again, if you're interested in. 1:05:53 Sean Finnegan Weighing in find episode 556 recruiting Ancients for the creation debate and leave your feedback there. Next week, we're going to be back to Joshua Michael Smith for Part 2 where he talks about youth ministry, which is something that is really. 1:06:07 Sean Finnegan Important and it's something that we're looking to develop here on the local level, at living Hope Community Church. But also I would encourage you to develop it in your own communities of faith. Well, that's going to draw an end for this episode. Thanks for tuning in. If you'd like to support us, you can do that at restitutio.org. We'll catch you next week. 1:06:27 Sean Finnegan And remember the truth. 1:06:30 Sean Finnegan Has nothing to fear.