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Speaker 1: Christians everywhere are facing this reality.

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Speaker 2: There have been so many people that, unfortunately, have made

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Speaker 2: wrong decisions when it comes to who God is and

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Speaker 2: who Christ is. Those who think that God doesn't want

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Speaker 2: us to suffer simply haven't read the scriptures.

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Speaker 1: You have gone through a lot.

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Speaker 2: I ended up going to hospital after hospital, and for

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Speaker 2: the next five years, I kept coming back to the hospital.

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Speaker 1: So you're suffering without a definition of what's causing it.

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Speaker 2: To this point, my body decided I'm done with this

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Speaker 2: and I'm going to take a rest, whether you want

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Speaker 2: to or not, and she said, this is the first

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Speaker 2: time at e rehobd this.

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Speaker 1: Well, Hello Dan Wallace and welcome to the Unbound podcast. Well,

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Speaker 1: people who don't know you, everybody should know you, but

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Speaker 1: for people who I don't know you, introduce yourself, tell

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Speaker 1: us who you are and what you do, and we'll

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Speaker 1: get into why it matters.

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Speaker 2: Tony, thank you for the privilege of being on your podcast.

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Speaker 2: This is exciting for me, and I'm You've been in

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Speaker 2: my corner for years and I appreciate that. And I've

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Speaker 2: been in your corner for years. I mean, they're doing

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Speaker 2: important ministry and I hope that what I'm doing is

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Speaker 2: important for the kingdom as well.

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Speaker 1: My name is Dan.

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Speaker 2: Wallace and I am the husband of Patti Wallace. Come

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Speaker 2: this gin, we will be married for fifty one years.

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Speaker 1: Congratulations.

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Speaker 2: All the congratulations goes to her. I've just been going

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Speaker 2: along for the ride because she's the one who has

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Speaker 2: the patience of job and all this. But that's the

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Speaker 2: thing you need to know about me.

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Speaker 1: Well, you are a unique person with a unique gifting,

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Speaker 1: with an absolutely unique calling as a new test Mescala,

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Speaker 1: as a person who has spent a lot of times

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Speaker 1: on manuscripts. We're going to get into that, but that's

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Speaker 1: not where I want to start. I want to start

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Speaker 1: out discussion on suffering. You have gone through a lot

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Speaker 1: in your life in terms of things that you've had

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Speaker 1: to face and go through and trust God in. One

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Speaker 1: of the biggest is encephalitis. And you know, many people

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Speaker 1: are struggling today with all kinds of chronic illnesses and

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Speaker 1: things that on disappearing, who are having to believe God

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Speaker 1: in the storms of life. So let's start off by

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Speaker 1: talking a little bit about what you've been going through

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Speaker 1: and that journey that God has taken you on.

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Speaker 2: In March of nineteen ninety seven, I contracted encephalotis. I

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Speaker 2: was doing way too much the weekend before, was involved

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Speaker 2: in five conferences or speaking engagements, and you know what

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Speaker 2: that's like. But my body decided I'm done with this

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Speaker 2: and I'm going to take a rest, whether you want

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Speaker 2: to or not. So I came home and I drove

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Speaker 2: into my garage, and I mean I drove into my garage.

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Speaker 2: I hit the back wall. Oh wow, which was the

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Speaker 2: first time I had ever done that, and it was

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Speaker 2: shocking to me. So I talked to my wife. She said, well,

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Speaker 2: let's go see the doctor, see what's going on. And

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Speaker 2: as I'm waiting for him, I'm lying down on the

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Speaker 2: table and I couldn't get up. I couldn't sit back up,

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Speaker 2: even sit up. And he came in and I asked

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Speaker 2: my wife. At that time, I said, who's the president.

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Speaker 2: It was nineteen ninety seven. Bill Clinton had been president

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Speaker 2: for five years, and I couldn't remember this. So the

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Speaker 2: doctor came in. He saw me and he said, well,

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Speaker 2: I'm not going to just check you out. You're going

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Speaker 2: into er right now. So they put me in the

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Speaker 2: hospital for four days, and at the end of the

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Speaker 2: four days, I couldn't walk. I needed to get a wheelchair.

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Speaker 2: During those first four days in the hospital, I would

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Speaker 2: have almost complete bodily paralysis that affected everything except my

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Speaker 2: fingers and my mouth. And it would and I could

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Speaker 2: feel when it was coming on. I would I'd say, oh,

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Speaker 2: it's hitting now, and about forty five minutes later, I'd

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Speaker 2: be in total paralysis. Couldn't move anything for about an

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Speaker 2: hour or so. One time, they brought in dinner just

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Speaker 2: as the paralysis was hitting, and I didn't say anything.

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Speaker 2: So I'm looking at this food getting cold for an

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Speaker 2: hour and I couldn't even get to the button to

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Speaker 2: push it and say, hey, I need some help here.

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Speaker 2: But there was a counselor. I said, I you know,

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Speaker 2: I was really fascinated by this disease. Frankly didn't know

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Speaker 2: what it was. But there was a counselor.

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Speaker 1: You were fascinated. You're suffering? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean it was Is that what Greece colins do. They

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Speaker 1: get fascinated by a self diagnosis and what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: It's really interesting. And I said, they said need anything?

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Speaker 2: I said, yeah, do you have a Christian counselor here? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we do. So this lady who came in and she

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Speaker 2: had her degree from a liberal school. I wanted to

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Speaker 2: talk theology with her, and I taught and I basically

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Speaker 2: shared the Gospel with her and how God poured his

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Speaker 2: wrath out on his own son. And she said, this

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Speaker 2: first time I'd ever heard this. That's cosmic child abuse.

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Speaker 2: God would never do that. And now that's crept into

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Speaker 2: some evangelical thinking, which is really scary to see. It

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Speaker 2: used to be just a bastion of a liberal thought.

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Speaker 2: And a little bit later a psychologist came in and

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Speaker 2: he talked to me. He said, are you are you concerned,

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Speaker 2: are you afraid you might die? Anything like that. I said, oh, no,

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Speaker 2: not at all, because when I go, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: be in the arms of Jesus. I'm sharing the Gospel

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Speaker 2: with him. And he wrote up a report that said,

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Speaker 2: this guy is not stable. He's got delusions of grandeur,

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Speaker 2: thinking it's all because of me that I get to

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Speaker 2: go to have a hid, and he didn't quite get

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Speaker 2: the gospel message real well. So over the next several weeks,

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Speaker 2: even months, I ended up going to hospital after hospital,

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Speaker 2: and for the next five years I kept coming back

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Speaker 2: to the hospital. I would be there on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve,

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Speaker 2: New Year's Day, New Year's Eve, other times my birthday.

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Speaker 2: You know, just every two or three weeks, I'd go

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Speaker 2: back to the hospital. And at one point there was

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Speaker 2: a nurse who they gave me again cyclovir, which is

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Speaker 2: a slow drip drug. They had no idea what to

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Speaker 2: do with me because my memory was just shot and

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Speaker 2: I had no energy. I could walk maybe one hundred

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Speaker 2: steps a day at one point, and so I was

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Speaker 2: in a wheelchair for virtually a year, almost a full year.

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Speaker 2: And during the summer, just as the school was out,

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Speaker 2: I was getting this gan cyclovir, which is a drug

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Speaker 2: that they give to AIDS patients. Not that I had age.

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Speaker 2: They just they're throwing everything, including the kitchen sink at me.

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Speaker 2: You know. They even said we're going to test you

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Speaker 2: for syphilis, and I said, you know, if you do that,

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Speaker 2: I'm not paying a time for that because I can

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Speaker 2: guarantee you. So they thought it was mad cow disease.

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Speaker 2: They just didn't know what was going on. It was

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Speaker 2: a bizarre thing.

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Speaker 1: Well, wait minute, for those who don't know what encephalitis is,

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Speaker 1: can you just give a summary of it so that

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Speaker 1: they can know what's the base of what you're going through.

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Speaker 2: It's actually just swelling of the brain, that's all it is.

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Speaker 2: And you get a high white white blood count that

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Speaker 2: is in your system trying to protect you. And there's

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Speaker 2: all sorts of things that come out of encephalized. There's

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Speaker 2: a number of different kinds like menis and mad cow disease,

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Speaker 2: and I guess syphilis is a sort of enciphialitis. The

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Speaker 2: CDC got involved and they never figured out what it was.

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Speaker 2: And I said, well, if you ever do, just name

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Speaker 2: it after me, that would be fine. So I was

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Speaker 2: joking about this, all this kind of stuff, and then

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Speaker 2: during the summer I was getting these slow drips every day.

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Speaker 2: They put in a stint to my heart and they

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Speaker 2: had a flesh into my veins as well. And this

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Speaker 2: against cyclovia that they gave me hour and a half

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Speaker 2: drip in the morning, hour and a half in the afternoon.

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Speaker 2: My wife was administering it, and it's kind of like

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Speaker 2: napalm on the body, and they were taking blood twice

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Speaker 2: a week to see if it was killing off any

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Speaker 2: organs besides the disease. It did nothing, nothing for the disease.

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Speaker 2: There was a nurse who had been a nurse for

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Speaker 2: twenty five years, and she would come to the house

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Speaker 2: and take my blood. And after a few times of

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Speaker 2: doing this, she took my blood one day and or

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Speaker 2: tried to from my arm and my vein collapsed. So

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Speaker 2: she tried it on the back of my hand. As

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Speaker 2: soon as she injected the needle, the vein collapsed. Then

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Speaker 2: she tried another place, in another place, in another place,

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Speaker 2: and another place. Every single time she got a vein,

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Speaker 2: soon as she put the needle in it collapsed. It

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Speaker 2: took her ten tries to get blood from me. She

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Speaker 2: got it out of my big toe. That's what she

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Speaker 2: had to do. And then she said, I've only had

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Speaker 2: one other patient in my entire career that has a

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Speaker 2: powerful subconscious mind, and you have a very powerful aversion

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Speaker 2: to pain. I had a very powerful aversion to needles

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Speaker 2: because I played football. Pain didn't bother me. But this

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Speaker 2: kind it's antiseptic. You're supposed to not be in pain

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Speaker 2: when you're seeing a doctor. You're supposed to be healed.

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Speaker 2: But I just needles I couldn't handle. And so she said,

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Speaker 2: I can't see you anymore. She was kind of growing

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Speaker 2: fond of us and said basically, she said I don't

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Speaker 2: want to be here when you die. So after several

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Speaker 2: weeks of doing this that summer, when I'm on gen Cyclavir,

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Speaker 2: here I'm in bed and I'm sleeping for twenty two

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Speaker 2: hours a day. Twenty two hours a day I was asleep.

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Speaker 2: I'd get up at about ten or eleven in the morning,

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Speaker 2: wheel myself into the dining room, eat some oatmeal, get

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Speaker 2: some coffee, and I could read a maximum of ten

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Speaker 2: or twenty minutes a day total. So I couldn't read

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Speaker 2: very much. But I asked a friend to get cassette

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Speaker 2: tapes of s Lewis Johnson preaching through romans and so

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Speaker 2: that's I could listen to that, which was well.

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Speaker 1: I had as Louis Johnson for class at Dallas simitar

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Speaker 1: so that I don't carry you deep.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I love listening to that. So here it is

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Speaker 2: June sixth I'm lying in bed and the door is

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Speaker 2: closed in the bedroom. My wife is at home that day,

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Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, I get up and I yell,

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Speaker 2: and I run towards the door. I wasn't hooked up

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Speaker 2: to the IVY at the time. I run towards the door,

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Speaker 2: hit it and fall backwards. And fell down. My wife

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Speaker 2: came in, what's going on. I'm fighting Germans on Omaha Beach.

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Speaker 2: It was D Day, the anniversary, June sixth, and I

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Speaker 2: was hallucinating, and so she called the nurse and said,

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Speaker 2: just against cyclover causes. No, it's not against cycle of art.

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Speaker 2: Something else is doing it. We don't know what this is,

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Speaker 2: but it's the encephralized somehow. So a little while later,

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Speaker 2: four big NFL linemen came in paramedics, and I'm sure

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Speaker 2: they had been NFL, because you know, they walk in

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Speaker 2: and you don't want to mess with these guys. And

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Speaker 2: they they rushed me down to Parkland Hospital in an ambulance,

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Speaker 2: and I was strapped into the gurney in the back

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Speaker 2: of the ambulance, and I'm with one guy in the

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Speaker 2: back and he said, you know, I think you're doing

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Speaker 2: just fine. Now I can let you out or take

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Speaker 2: off the straps, and I said, please, don't. I keep

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Speaker 2: having the urge to run out the back of the

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Speaker 2: ambulance because I'm fighting dragons in medieval England and I've

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Speaker 2: got to get out and get the sword and slay them,

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Speaker 2: you know. And there were other times when I thought

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Speaker 2: a train was coming right at me. You know, I'm

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Speaker 2: just bizarre hallucinations. So they put me in the epilepsy

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Speaker 2: ward at Parkland Hospital and I was there for five days,

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Speaker 2: and they hooked up my brain to about twenty four

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Speaker 2: diodes and I was in the room by myself. There's

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Speaker 2: no other patient there. And every day when I'd go

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Speaker 2: to the bathroom, when I flushed the toilet, I did

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Speaker 2: not know where I was. I did not know when

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Speaker 2: it was, and I did not know who I was.

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Speaker 2: It erased everything. And it took me four days before

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Speaker 2: I recognized that when I flushed the toilet that happened

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Speaker 2: because it erased my memory. So it took four days

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Speaker 2: to put these two things together. So I asked them,

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Speaker 2: I know this is not the most most comfortable thing,

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Speaker 2: wanting me take a leak, but I want you to

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Speaker 2: aim the cameras at me while I go in there

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Speaker 2: and see if there's anything else going on. They did.

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Speaker 2: They said, you don't have aplepsy. We don't know what

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Speaker 2: it is. It was encephalitis, but they didn't know what kind.

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Speaker 1: So you're suffering without a definition of what's causing it

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Speaker 1: to this point. But already, even as you take me

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Speaker 1: on this journey that you've gone through, I'm seeing a

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Speaker 1: lot of theology, maybe unintended theology, being communicated, because if

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Speaker 1: I go all the way back to the beginning where

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Speaker 1: you ask for a Christian counselor, and the person who

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Speaker 1: came in under that designation apparently with not a Christian

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Speaker 1: certainly didn't have a right understanding of God. But then

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Speaker 1: you made another statement, some of the wrong thinking about

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Speaker 1: God has crept into the evangelical world. That wrong thinking

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Speaker 1: of faulty about suffering and God's relationship to suffering. Can

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Speaker 1: we just take a moment to talk about that wrong

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Speaker 1: thinking related to suffering because the Bible talks about it

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Speaker 1: a lot, but we don't want it so bad we've

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Speaker 1: created a false theology to keep us from dealing with.

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Speaker 2: It right absolutely.

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Speaker 1: What is your perspective on that?

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Speaker 2: Romans Chapter eight, verse eighteen has been an exceedingly meaningful

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Speaker 2: verse in my life. I do not consider the suffering

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Speaker 2: of the present time to be worthy to be compared

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Speaker 2: to the glory that will be revealed to us. This

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Speaker 2: is the apostle Paul who said this. He suffered as

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Speaker 2: much as any Christian error. He'd been stoned. They thought

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Speaker 2: he was dead, shipwrecked, whipped, persecuted. The Lord Jesus when

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Speaker 2: he called him on the road to Damascus, said you're

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Speaker 2: going to suffer a lot for my name. Not that

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Speaker 2: the suffering is what makes him worthy of salvation. It's

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Speaker 2: rather that the suffering is a part of God's plan

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Speaker 2: to bring more people into the kingdom. And Paul at

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Speaker 2: one point said, he's got this thorn in the flesh,

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Speaker 2: and we're not exactly sure where that is, but most

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Speaker 2: likely some kind of suffering, and he asked the Lord

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Speaker 2: three times to take it away. God said, my grace

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Speaker 2: is sufficient for you. That's a huge lesson for us

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Speaker 2: to understand. And at one of those times for Paul,

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Speaker 2: when in Second Corinthians he talks about he knows a

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Speaker 2: man in Christ who went up to the third Heaven.

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Speaker 2: What he describes there is almost identical to people who

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Speaker 2: have had near death experiences. There's a lot of features

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Speaker 2: that he talks about, and most scholars would say Paul

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Speaker 2: is speaking of his own experience the one time when

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Speaker 2: he was almost dead, and so what he says, I

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Speaker 2: don't consider the sufferings of the present time to be worthy.

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Speaker 2: He's not talking about first world problems where all of

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Speaker 2: a sudden your cruise control goes out. He's talking about

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Speaker 2: real suffering. And think about the travel in the ancient

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Speaker 2: world that was that was never easy. And Paul he

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Speaker 2: suffered just a great deal. There's an icon of Paul

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Speaker 2: early on and a description of him that he was bowlegged,

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Speaker 2: and that may have been due to the beatings that

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Speaker 2: he got, because that causes the muscles to go in

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Speaker 2: some wrong directions and could have caused that very thing.

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Speaker 2: For Paul to say, I don't think the sufferings of

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Speaker 2: the present time are worthy to be compared has given

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Speaker 2: me a great deal of hope. It does not matter

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Speaker 2: how much I suffer. I know that God is there

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Speaker 2: and He's going to bring me into his kingdom for

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Speaker 2: Christ's sake and because of Christ, and for Christ's glory.

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Speaker 1: So for the so for the Christian. You know, I've

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Speaker 1: got a relative who's going through an extended time of

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Speaker 1: suffering and it doesn't appear to heave an end to it.

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Speaker 1: And Christians everywhere are facing this reality. And you appeal

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Speaker 1: to Romans eight eighteen. There's a perspective that has to

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Speaker 1: be integrated into the suffering to help us to endure

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Speaker 1: the suffering victoriously and not defeated. The practical question is

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Speaker 1: how does a person integrate that because the suffering is

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Speaker 1: so visible or physical or painful, so that that doesn't

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Speaker 1: get lost in the process of the pain.

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Speaker 2: It's easy for us to get lost in the present

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Speaker 2: conditions that we're facing, whether a personal suffering or trials,

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Speaker 2: or our culture, society, or the political world or anything

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Speaker 2: like that. It's very easy for us to focus on

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Speaker 2: the now and to become such an existentialist that that's

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Speaker 2: the only time we live. We should always be living

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Speaker 2: for Christ and his glory, but we need to be

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Speaker 2: living in the now, but not living for the now,

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Speaker 2: and having that perspective of what suffering does to bring

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Speaker 2: glory to God is critical now. To me, the most

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Speaker 2: important passage on this that has really meant the most

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Speaker 2: to me is Romans five eight. But God demonstrates present

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Speaker 2: tense in Greek, his own love toward us in that

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Speaker 2: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For God.

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Speaker 2: He is everywhere, all at once, and He is every time,

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Speaker 2: all at once, and so for God. For the try

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Speaker 2: and God, the suffering of Christ on the cross is

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Speaker 2: always present. His suffering. God delivered him up for us

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Speaker 2: all He actually, in the Greek word means he betrayed him.

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Speaker 2: How will he not freely give us all things? Romans

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Speaker 2: eight thirty two. If that's the case, and Jesus went

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Speaker 2: to the cross obediently and in the will of God,

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Speaker 2: when you think about suffering, you have to think about

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Speaker 2: what the Lord himself went through. It wasn't just that

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Speaker 2: physical suffering, which was a beating within an inch of

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Speaker 2: his life and then crucified nails in his hands and feet.

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Speaker 2: Is carrying the whole world's sin on his shoulders and

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Speaker 2: then cry out, my God, My God, why have you

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Speaker 2: forsaken me. It's the only time in the Gospels where

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Speaker 2: he doesn't call God father. He's treating him as his judge,

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Speaker 2: because he's just born the sins of the whole world.

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Speaker 2: And when I talked to people who have gone through suffering,

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Speaker 2: even chronic suffering, that's the model we need to keep

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Speaker 2: in mind. God knows what suffering is like. The God

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Speaker 2: man himself knows it far more deeply than we ever will.

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Speaker 2: I want to go back even before myn encephalitis, and

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Speaker 2: a lesson I learned five years earlier. One of our

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Speaker 2: four sons had cancer in nineteen ninety two. He was

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Speaker 2: eight years old. It was discovered when they were about

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Speaker 2: to do a biopsy because he had assist on his kidney,

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Speaker 2: and instead of doing a biopsy, there were ten doctors

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Speaker 2: at Children's Hospital, and I had asked, I want to

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Speaker 2: make sure that at least one of these doctors is

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Speaker 2: a Christian. These ten doctors were going to do this biopsy,

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Speaker 2: and if it was a Whelm's tumor, which is an

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Speaker 2: easy cancer to deal with and the success rate is terrific,

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Speaker 2: that they would have taken that cyst out be fun.

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Speaker 2: But one doctor said, I don't think we should do

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Speaker 2: the biopsy, and they said why. I don't know, but

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Speaker 2: I don't think it's right to do the biopsy. Instead,

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Speaker 2: what they did is they cut him open and they

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Speaker 2: took his kidney out, and later they discovered that it

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Speaker 2: was renal cell carcinoma. That's one of the most lethal

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Speaker 2: and quick acting cancers known to man. Andy was the

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Speaker 2: first child in America in ten years with that disease

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Speaker 2: and the one hundred and sixty second in the world

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Speaker 2: ever known. Now, I'm such a goal oriented person, I

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Speaker 2: had to study up on this, and the doctors said,

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Speaker 2: mister missus Wallace, we don't know if we should give

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Speaker 2: him chemotherapy as a preventive measure or not. Five of

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Speaker 2: us say yes, five of us say no. You have

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Speaker 2: to decide. We're giving you forty eight hours. Well, so

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Speaker 2: I read everything I could on renal cell carsonomo, eleven

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Speaker 2: different articles, and I saw in there a thread it

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Speaker 2: had not yet been articulated as a thing, but that

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Speaker 2: every single time they did a biopsy in that child,

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Speaker 2: that child died from the cancer getting into the bloodstream

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Speaker 2: and within months, three months, something like that. And so

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Speaker 2: I was grateful at that point that they didn't do

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Speaker 2: the biopsy, you know. And I also discovered that you

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Speaker 2: either survived for two years or you don't. So after

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Speaker 2: two years you are considered in remission from this disease.

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Speaker 2: So for the next two years, my goal, what I

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Speaker 2: was living for, was to see Andy be in remission.

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Speaker 2: I was so goal oriented. I wasn't living in the now,

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Speaker 2: and I was It was a bad time in my life.

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Speaker 2: I did not handle suffering well at all. I started

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Speaker 2: taking the boys to dog shows. We'd just gotten a dog,

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Speaker 2: and I wanted to show the dog and I would

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Speaker 2: be there on weekends on Sundays, and my wife, who is,

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Speaker 2: as I said, has the patience of job, at one

380
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Speaker 2: point just wrote a little letter and whenever she wrote

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Speaker 2: a letter, that means I better sit up and pay

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Speaker 2: attention because I've done something pretty serious. It's her very

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Speaker 2: gentle way, and she said, where have you been the

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Speaker 2: last several months? It seems like you care about that

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Speaker 2: dog more than you do your family. And the problem

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Speaker 2: was that I wasn't caring more about that dog. It

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Speaker 2: was just too much pain for me to think about

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Speaker 2: that my son could die, and so I put all

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Speaker 2: my love in the dog, that if this dog died,

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Speaker 2: it's not the end of the world. I was teaching

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Speaker 2: a Greek class that summer, and one of the students

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Speaker 2: I came in one day and I said, you guys

393
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Speaker 2: have no idea what suffering is about. Who's ever gone

394
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Speaker 2: through anything like this? Talking about just seeing my son

395
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Speaker 2: on chemo and walking around the house with a bucket

396
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Speaker 2: where he's throwing up the whole time, and at eight

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Speaker 2: years old, at one point weighing forty five pounds while

398
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Speaker 2: his twin brother weighed eighty five pounds. And I said,

399
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Speaker 2: nobody's ever suffered like this. One of the students wisely said,

400
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Speaker 2: God's own son has suffered a lot more. He buked

401
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:39,359
Speaker 2: his professor, and he did so with scripture, and it

402
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Speaker 2: caught me up short, and I realized, Yeah, we can't

403
00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,439
Speaker 2: ever claim that our suffering comes close to that, and

404
00:25:48,520 --> 00:25:52,840
Speaker 2: that was within God's will. And so I see suffering

405
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Speaker 2: like what Paul says early on in Roman's chapter five.

406
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Speaker 2: He says that trials produced perseverance, person as produces character,

407
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:04,720
Speaker 2: character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint because of

408
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Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit has been poured out within us. That's massive.

409
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Speaker 2: God is behind the suffering because he's conforming us to Christ.

410
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Speaker 1: Maintaining this eternal perspective and painful times. I can remember

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Speaker 1: when my late wife Lois, who you knew, was suffering

412
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Speaker 1: an extended time with a rare cancer gall bladder cancer,

413
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Speaker 1: and just just over time got weaker and weaker and

414
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Speaker 1: weaker and weaker. The thing that held me up held

415
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,720
Speaker 1: her up, but it also helped hold me up well.

416
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Speaker 1: She kept bringing up this eternal perspective. She asked me,

417
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Speaker 1: knowing that if barring a miracle, she wasn't going to

418
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Speaker 1: make it. How long would it take her after she

419
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Speaker 1: died to get to heaven just to just to hear,

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Speaker 1: you know, to be answered from the body, to be

421
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: present with the Lord. She would often just hold her

422
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Speaker 1: hand up, almost inviting Jesus to take her. And I

423
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Speaker 1: remember on our last night, I was laying beside her,

424
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Speaker 1: and I would be that morning when she passed away.

425
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Speaker 1: That she helped me be able to say in that moment,

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Speaker 1: not my will, but Thy will be done, because her

427
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: willingness to have an eternal perspective helped me to have

428
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:37,560
Speaker 1: an eternal perspective when I didn't want any eternal perspective

429
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Speaker 1: in light of the pain that she was going through

430
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Speaker 1: that I was in the family was sharing with her.

431
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:49,800
Speaker 1: And it is so even what you're telling your story,

432
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: it is so critical that we help believers to keep

433
00:27:54,280 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: that in front of them in the now, even though

434
00:27:57,320 --> 00:27:59,720
Speaker 1: it may not be the not yet, so that they

435
00:27:59,760 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: can so that they can make it through the now.

436
00:28:02,760 --> 00:28:06,320
Speaker 1: But what is happening is there is this appeal to

437
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: Isaiah fifty three that you know, he boils sufferings as

438
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:14,480
Speaker 1: a way of saying that this is not in the

439
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:17,760
Speaker 1: will of God because of was covered at the Cross.

440
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: Of course, Jesus in the New Testament says he fulfilled that,

441
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,040
Speaker 1: but that gets extended. What is your response to people

442
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:28,600
Speaker 1: who use that scripture to remove suffering as something that

443
00:28:28,680 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: God is involved with.

444
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: They have no understanding of scripture. It's like the prosperity

445
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 2: gospel where God wants your best life now kind of

446
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:45,200
Speaker 2: a thing. That's I think God uses most those who

447
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:48,800
Speaker 2: suffer the most, those who have been through the trials.

448
00:28:49,520 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: That's the kind of person that God is honing for

449
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:56,239
Speaker 2: his glory. My good friend Ed Kamashevsky, he lost his

450
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:59,200
Speaker 2: seventeen year old daughter three and a half years ago.

451
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 2: She was working at the chiropractor. The team went out

452
00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: for coffee. When they came back, she was dead on

453
00:29:08,120 --> 00:29:12,520
Speaker 2: the floor. She just dropped dead, her heart stopped. And

454
00:29:12,640 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 2: that kind of suffering, My gosh, how do people deal

455
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:18,040
Speaker 2: with that kind of thing? But what Ed and Shelley

456
00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:22,160
Speaker 2: have done is they've recognized that this is part of

457
00:29:22,240 --> 00:29:28,600
Speaker 2: God's will. That Emily, the night before she died, she

458
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:32,920
Speaker 2: wrote in her journal fourteen pages. She's writing in a journal,

459
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 2: And the thing that she wrote that really sticks out

460
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 2: in my mind is when people think of me, I

461
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 2: want them to think of Jesus, and that's exactly what

462
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 2: has happened. So here is a friend who has gone

463
00:29:50,520 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 2: through amazing struggles. When parents lose a child, marriages typically

464
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 2: in in divorce within five years, and Ed and Shelley

465
00:30:01,000 --> 00:30:04,520
Speaker 2: has said, we are not about to let this terrible

466
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 2: tragedy be unused by God because he still is in

467
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:14,000
Speaker 2: control of everything. And those who think that God doesn't

468
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:19,680
Speaker 2: want us to suffer simply haven't read the scriptures good grief.

469
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 2: I mean, just read the Old Testament, read the New Testament.

470
00:30:22,240 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 2: That suffering is meant for Christ's glory and for our character.

471
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: So a question that a person has to ask and

472
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:33,680
Speaker 1: their loved ones is God, how do you want to

473
00:30:33,800 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: use what I'm going through for your glory and my

474
00:30:38,600 --> 00:30:42,320
Speaker 1: good in the midst of this pain then I am

475
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: currently experiencing exactly.

476
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the attitude that we should have that.

477
00:30:47,680 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: Has to be reinforced over and over and over again,

478
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:53,560
Speaker 1: because it's easy to lose sight of that when you're

479
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:55,960
Speaker 1: going through it. And if you don't have people around

480
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: you and people shepherding you through that way of thinking,

481
00:31:00,440 --> 00:31:03,800
Speaker 1: you can get mad at God, you can rebel against God,

482
00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: you can you know resist him rather than leaning into

483
00:31:08,560 --> 00:31:09,400
Speaker 1: him doing not time.

484
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:13,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding. I've gone through a tad bit of

485
00:31:13,280 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 2: suffering since the encephalitis. I started the Center for the

486
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 2: Study of New Testament Manuscripts five years later in two

487
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 2: thousand and two, and while on expedition throughout the world,

488
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 2: I've been in thirty nine countries now and we've digitized

489
00:31:28,360 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 2: Greek New testam manuscripts on four different continents. I have

490
00:31:33,240 --> 00:31:39,240
Speaker 2: injured my left knee, my right knee, both wrists. That

491
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 2: was when I was carrying one hundred pound bags in

492
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 2: each arm up stairs in a hotel that did not

493
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,800
Speaker 2: have an elevator and we were on the first floor

494
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 2: and it ruptured discs in my neck and carpal tunnel.

495
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 2: Serious damage in both hands and my back. I've had

496
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,160
Speaker 2: surgeries on all those joints. I feel like I've got

497
00:32:03,200 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 2: more titanium than bone in my body now. And my

498
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:11,240
Speaker 2: wife caught me up short just the other day. She said,

499
00:32:11,880 --> 00:32:14,960
Speaker 2: you know, I haven't heard you say when you get

500
00:32:15,040 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 2: up that it's a good day. You start complaining about

501
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:22,719
Speaker 2: the pain. And I said, you're absolutely right. It's easier

502
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:25,240
Speaker 2: for us to fall back into that. And I fell

503
00:32:25,280 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: back into it. All that I've gone through, I should

504
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 2: know better. Like the Israelites when they went through forty

505
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:34,959
Speaker 2: years in the wilderness, they should know better. I'm just

506
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 2: as frail and sinful as the next guy, probably more so.

507
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: But I love having a good wife who brings me

508
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 2: back to the Lord.

509
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,960
Speaker 1: Well, having people who love you in your life, but

510
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 1: who also love God and can bring God to bear

511
00:32:53,400 --> 00:32:56,479
Speaker 1: in those times, which is why we can't be, you know,

512
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:01,280
Speaker 1: isolated lone range of Christians, because because we may not

513
00:33:01,360 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 1: have the strength to keep going on our own, need

514
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 1: to be picked up by some other people. So that's good.

515
00:33:07,680 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 1: So you were talking about you had stuff a light

516
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,760
Speaker 1: is I kind of cut you off, but but go

517
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:14,120
Speaker 1: ahead to the next phase of that.

518
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:22,840
Speaker 2: So by October of ninety seven, my doctor realized, he said,

519
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:25,320
Speaker 2: you're not going to last another month. You're not going

520
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:27,640
Speaker 2: to live another month. I'd already been to four hospitals,

521
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:32,200
Speaker 2: four different hospitals, and I'd already had four spinal taps.

522
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,600
Speaker 2: Those are not particularly pleasant things to have. And I

523
00:33:36,600 --> 00:33:41,320
Speaker 2: had a brain flesh where the it's too graphic to

524
00:33:41,320 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 2: tell you, but the flesh iodine into your brain, and

525
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 2: they said it's going to feel like a warm handtael

526
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:50,840
Speaker 2: on your face. Well, it felt like somebody just poured

527
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:53,760
Speaker 2: scalding water on my face, but it only lasted a

528
00:33:53,840 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 2: split second. I'm glad they didn't tell me it's going

529
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 2: to be like that, and I had to be awake

530
00:33:57,800 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 2: when they did that for various reasons, but they did

531
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 2: all sorts of things to me that I almost felt

532
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:09,640
Speaker 2: like medicine today is simply trying to torture you so

533
00:34:09,680 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 2: that you can say, uncle, em, I'm not going to

534
00:34:11,239 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 2: stay in the hospital anymore. But it's a bit more

535
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 2: sophisticated than that. But it was a difficult time and

536
00:34:18,560 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 2: it's still in my body. It was in twenty fifteen

537
00:34:23,120 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 2: when my center went to the National Library of Greece

538
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 2: and started to digitize. There are three hundred Greek New

539
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:36,560
Speaker 2: Testament manuscripts in Athens, one hundred and fifty thousand pages

540
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:40,240
Speaker 2: of manuscripts. It took us two years. We trained forty

541
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:44,560
Speaker 2: four people to do the digitizing, and we post all

542
00:34:44,560 --> 00:34:48,200
Speaker 2: our images for free forever on the internet so anybody

543
00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 2: can have access to them. It was my task before

544
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:56,239
Speaker 2: the digitization teams came to be in Athens at the

545
00:34:56,320 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: National Library, preparing these main for digitization. Now what that

546
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 2: meant was I had to count how many leaves there were,

547
00:35:06,080 --> 00:35:10,880
Speaker 2: how many pages, measure the dimensions in six different places.

548
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:14,960
Speaker 2: I had to write up a table of contents that

549
00:35:15,160 --> 00:35:20,160
Speaker 2: here's where this book starts and ends, what the general

550
00:35:20,239 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 2: date of the manuscript was, a lot of things that

551
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 2: I had to do. I won't get in all the details,

552
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:28,719
Speaker 2: but it would take about four hours to prepare each

553
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 2: manuscript for digitization. Because in the most mundane way you

554
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 2: can understand this. If I say this manuscript has two

555
00:35:36,680 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty one pages, and that means or two

556
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 2: hundred and eighty one leaves, that means that you're going

557
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 2: to get two hundred and one pictures on the right

558
00:35:47,800 --> 00:35:49,919
Speaker 2: page and two hundred and eighty one on the left

559
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,560
Speaker 2: the back side of it. If I didn't do that

560
00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 2: count ahead of time and tell where we are in

561
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,600
Speaker 2: the whole thing, then you might get a count off,

562
00:35:58,719 --> 00:36:01,200
Speaker 2: which we did in earlier by a couple of pages.

563
00:36:01,320 --> 00:36:03,200
Speaker 2: So you got two hundred and eighty three on the

564
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:05,480
Speaker 2: front and then two hundred and seventy nine in the back.

565
00:36:06,040 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 2: You made some mistakes somewhere, we don't know where, So

566
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,680
Speaker 2: that was a mundane thing, but it was four hours

567
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:16,080
Speaker 2: for each manuscript. On average, three hundred manuscripts in twenty

568
00:36:16,080 --> 00:36:18,800
Speaker 2: fifteen and sixteen. I spent a lot of time in Athens.

569
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 2: It was my second home. And when i'd get done

570
00:36:22,560 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 2: with handling these manuscripts and writing up the metadata on them,

571
00:36:26,800 --> 00:36:30,520
Speaker 2: I worked in the manuscript room at the National Library

572
00:36:30,560 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 2: that had no air conditioning, and I worked especially during

573
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:37,799
Speaker 2: the summers. Athens is like Dallas. It gets about the

574
00:36:37,840 --> 00:36:41,040
Speaker 2: same kind of weather that Dallas does year round, and

575
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:44,719
Speaker 2: it would be ninety five degrees in the manuscript room

576
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:48,920
Speaker 2: and there was no air conditionings. I said, So what

577
00:36:48,960 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: I would do is I'd start bringing a handtel from

578
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:58,440
Speaker 2: the hotel. And I like to stay well hydrated. Couldn't

579
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,640
Speaker 2: do it then because of the risk sweating on the manuscripts.

580
00:37:02,040 --> 00:37:05,279
Speaker 2: So I'd bring this handtwel and I'd sweat out in

581
00:37:05,320 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 2: the first fifteen twenty minutes and just soak the towel

582
00:37:08,640 --> 00:37:11,240
Speaker 2: so that I would not drop sweats on the manuscripts.

583
00:37:11,880 --> 00:37:16,040
Speaker 2: And so by the end of the day this is

584
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:21,960
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, I could walk maybe fifty yards. I'd get

585
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,960
Speaker 2: to the taxi which was right there. He'd take me

586
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 2: to the hotel, and I'd go to the hotel, get

587
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: on my bed, and I'd lie there writhing in pain

588
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 2: for the next two hours, in part because of dehydration,

589
00:37:35,000 --> 00:37:38,839
Speaker 2: but in part because the encephalitis is still in my system.

590
00:37:39,120 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 2: And what's happened even to this day is if I

591
00:37:41,520 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 2: get too tired or too hot, one of the first

592
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,040
Speaker 2: things that happens is my legs begin to tingle, and

593
00:37:47,080 --> 00:37:50,960
Speaker 2: then I can't walk. And so it was important for

594
00:37:51,040 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: me to actually cause suffering to get these manuscripts digitized.

595
00:37:57,400 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 2: And yet it's because of the value of the Word

596
00:37:59,680 --> 00:38:04,080
Speaker 2: of God. So the encephalitis still weeks have econmy at times.

597
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,760
Speaker 2: There's not every places nearly as comfortable as air conditioned

598
00:38:07,760 --> 00:38:09,759
Speaker 2: America when we go shoot you know, well, you.

599
00:38:09,719 --> 00:38:14,520
Speaker 1: Know I've seen in our travels together, you fight through

600
00:38:14,600 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: some painful moments and struggling times to make sure that

601
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: we were able to see the work, to see the manuscripts,

602
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: to understand what's behind them, and see you fight through

603
00:38:28,719 --> 00:38:32,759
Speaker 1: that process because we were dealing with the Word of God.

604
00:38:32,920 --> 00:38:38,920
Speaker 1: When I think about suffering, the big passage that comes

605
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,160
Speaker 1: to mind from me is set in Corinthians one Versus

606
00:38:42,160 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: three three eleven, because he has this extended time where

607
00:38:46,400 --> 00:38:49,440
Speaker 1: it seems like Paul is almost at the point of suicide.

608
00:38:49,480 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 1: He was afflicted to the point of, yeah, he was

609
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:55,960
Speaker 1: almost ready to throw in the towel. But then he

610
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: talks about this God who comforts us so that we

611
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:01,640
Speaker 1: might comfort others.

612
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,399
Speaker 2: Exactly. That's so there is a.

613
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,799
Speaker 1: Ministry component to this that we cannot lose sight of

614
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:10,239
Speaker 1: in our own pain.

615
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:12,360
Speaker 2: And what made me think.

616
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: Of that again when Lois was struggling with cancer, there

617
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,120
Speaker 1: was another lady in our church struggling with cancer, and

618
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:26,120
Speaker 1: she picked up the phone and called to pray with

619
00:39:26,280 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 1: this other lady while she herself is dying, that God

620
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: would comfort and heal her.

621
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:35,920
Speaker 2: So this thing.

622
00:39:35,800 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 1: Of administering to others who are going through a simular

623
00:39:40,160 --> 00:39:43,479
Speaker 1: the same thing you're going through, so that the God

624
00:39:43,520 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: of all comfort can comfort you as you're comforting others,

625
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:50,200
Speaker 1: extending the grace that you yourself need, even to the

626
00:39:50,239 --> 00:39:54,719
Speaker 1: point where you giving up on anything for yourself. That passage,

627
00:39:54,760 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: to me, has been an illuminating, encouraging one for this

628
00:39:59,719 --> 00:40:02,759
Speaker 1: my set that we're saying we need to have when

629
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 1: we're going through things that are causing us hurt. And

630
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 1: pain and need God for us.

631
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 2: Couldn't say it better. That's exactly why we go through

632
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 2: the suffering. It's not, as I said, as far our

633
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:16,200
Speaker 2: character bringing us more christ Like, but it's also so

634
00:40:16,239 --> 00:40:18,239
Speaker 2: that we can relate to others who are going through

635
00:40:18,239 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. There have been so many people

636
00:40:22,440 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 2: that unfortunately have made wrong decisions when it comes to

637
00:40:27,040 --> 00:40:30,880
Speaker 2: who God is and who Christ is, and they'll say, well,

638
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:34,560
Speaker 2: my mother died in a car accident. There is no

639
00:40:34,640 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 2: God that kind of a thing. You remind them of

640
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:41,919
Speaker 2: what Jesus Christ has gone through, and that God knows

641
00:40:42,040 --> 00:40:46,040
Speaker 2: suffering personally in the God Man himself, and you remind

642
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:48,880
Speaker 2: them of what the apostle Paul has gone through. And

643
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 2: if you've gone through suffering in your own life, you

644
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:55,360
Speaker 2: share those stories to say out the other end is

645
00:40:55,440 --> 00:40:59,120
Speaker 2: God who is comforting us. And that's the only thing

646
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,400
Speaker 2: we can cling to. Jesus Christ, yesterday, today and forever

647
00:41:03,640 --> 00:41:06,719
Speaker 2: the same. He's the one we cling to through the word.

648
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,279
Speaker 1: Well, one of the things you mentioned you had to

649
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:11,680
Speaker 1: you had to relearn some things, including your love for

650
00:41:11,719 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 1: Greek and I've wrote other lessons that that came as

651
00:41:15,960 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 1: a result of you Encephalite has talked to me about

652
00:41:18,280 --> 00:41:22,399
Speaker 1: that relearning process and anything else that that God taught

653
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: you through this experience.

654
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,839
Speaker 2: Yea, when I was in college, I had four years

655
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 2: of Greek, but I wasn't very good at and my

656
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:38,680
Speaker 2: first year I almost flunked, and you're kidding. In fact,

657
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:43,840
Speaker 2: I deserved to flunk, but the professor had compassion on me.

658
00:41:45,239 --> 00:41:50,560
Speaker 2: And in second year Greek, I took a different professor.

659
00:41:50,600 --> 00:41:53,839
Speaker 2: In the first five weeks, we got an exam every

660
00:41:53,840 --> 00:41:58,480
Speaker 2: week review exam of first year Greek. I got an

661
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,440
Speaker 2: F on the first exam. I got an F on

662
00:42:02,600 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 2: the second exam. I got an F on the third exam.

663
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 2: But on the fourth exam I got a high F

664
00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:11,240
Speaker 2: a high failure.

665
00:42:11,280 --> 00:42:12,399
Speaker 1: Okay, And on.

666
00:42:12,320 --> 00:42:14,560
Speaker 2: The fifth exam I got a D mis And I said, hey,

667
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:19,040
Speaker 2: I'm getting this And the professor called me into his

668
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:20,879
Speaker 2: office and he said, young man, I think you need

669
00:42:20,920 --> 00:42:25,000
Speaker 2: to drop out of Greek. You're not warning it. And

670
00:42:25,040 --> 00:42:29,879
Speaker 2: that's I was so blinded that I thought, Jam, I'm

671
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 2: doing okay. Mediocrity was fine with me at a Christian college.

672
00:42:36,200 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 2: When he said that to me, I went down to

673
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,080
Speaker 2: my dorm rooms. I got on my knees. I said,

674
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:42,400
Speaker 2: Lord Jesus, I've been dragging your name through the mud.

675
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 2: If I were taking Greek at a secular school, they

676
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 2: would be dragging your name through the mud the professor.

677
00:42:50,800 --> 00:42:54,359
Speaker 2: Because I chose to do a mediocre job, I need

678
00:42:54,400 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 2: to do this for the glory of Jesus Christ. And

679
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,759
Speaker 2: so that year I ended up getting highest grade in

680
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 2: the class.

681
00:43:01,760 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 1: Wow.

682
00:43:03,480 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 2: So even though I learned that lesson, I still did

683
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 2: not have my fundamentals of Greek down well. And so

684
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 2: when I came to Dallas Seminary, I wanted to skip

685
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:18,879
Speaker 2: out of first year Greek. Well, you had to take

686
00:43:18,880 --> 00:43:22,560
Speaker 2: a test, and I studied for forty hours a week

687
00:43:22,600 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 2: while I'm working forty hours a week all summer long,

688
00:43:25,840 --> 00:43:28,600
Speaker 2: while my wife is also working forty hours a week.

689
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 2: It was a challenging summer. But I did so well

690
00:43:33,160 --> 00:43:36,080
Speaker 2: on that entrance exam that they said, you can skip

691
00:43:36,680 --> 00:43:38,960
Speaker 2: third semester Greek get right into fourth. I didn't want

692
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,319
Speaker 2: to do that. I wanted to get the syntax from

693
00:43:42,400 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 2: Dallas Seminary starting the third semester. But I had to

694
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 2: relearn Greek that summer because of how poorly I had

695
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:54,760
Speaker 2: learned it in college and then in nineteen ninety seven,

696
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,279
Speaker 2: when I got the encephalitis, I had to learn it

697
00:43:58,360 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 2: all over again. And I mentioned that I had just

698
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 2: finished my grammar that I had spent seventeen years writing

699
00:44:05,440 --> 00:44:09,560
Speaker 2: the year before. I mean, it got published the year before,

700
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: and I forgot most of it at least. Trouble interviewed

701
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:17,800
Speaker 2: me for his book, The Case for the Real Jesus,

702
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:19,919
Speaker 2: which is kind of a follow up on the Case

703
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 2: for Christ. And he had interviewed Bruce Metzker in the

704
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:27,920
Speaker 2: first book on textra criticism. He interviewed me for this

705
00:44:28,320 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 2: second book, which was what an honor it was to

706
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,640
Speaker 2: have him in my home having him interview me for

707
00:44:34,760 --> 00:44:38,239
Speaker 2: that chapter. And he put together something that I had

708
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,760
Speaker 2: never thought about before. And I read through the interview

709
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 2: wanted me to approve it before it got published, and

710
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 2: A go, oh, no, that's not right. He said, here's

711
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:53,120
Speaker 2: a man who learned Greek by teaching himself Greek from

712
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 2: the textbook that he had written. I said, well, actually, yeah,

713
00:44:58,600 --> 00:45:03,240
Speaker 2: that is right. So I had never put it together

714
00:45:03,280 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 2: that way, but Struggle did. And that's exactly what happened.

715
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 2: There were times as I was teaching second year Greek

716
00:45:10,200 --> 00:45:14,920
Speaker 2: that next fall semester that I would simply not remember

717
00:45:15,480 --> 00:45:19,880
Speaker 2: large sections of the grammar, and I'd get frustrated. I'd say,

718
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 2: what is this guy trying to say? Oh, this guy

719
00:45:22,719 --> 00:45:25,320
Speaker 2: is me. I should have been clearer, and other times,

720
00:45:25,480 --> 00:45:28,960
Speaker 2: oh that's a good insight, and then you can't say

721
00:45:28,960 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 2: that that's bragging. It was a weird experience, almost an

722
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:35,880
Speaker 2: out of body. It was an out of mind experience.

723
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,840
Speaker 1: You're teaching you from you about something you.

724
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:45,120
Speaker 2: Well, that's me. I am still relearning my Greek. There's

725
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:48,200
Speaker 2: pockets that are still I still have.

726
00:45:48,239 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: To well, I got luo luis.

727
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:57,160
Speaker 2: That's where you start, that's where you start. So during

728
00:45:57,200 --> 00:46:01,279
Speaker 2: that first year, a student I had to drive me

729
00:46:01,360 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 2: to school and he had a truck. He'd pick me up,

730
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:07,600
Speaker 2: we'd put the wheelchair in the back, and he drove

731
00:46:07,640 --> 00:46:13,120
Speaker 2: me to school every day for a year. I needed

732
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:15,640
Speaker 2: help in a lot of ways. Now. There was one

733
00:46:15,719 --> 00:46:19,040
Speaker 2: day that I drove myself to school in the fall semester.

734
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 2: I had a stick shift car. I couldn't drive out,

735
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:27,000
Speaker 2: but I could drive my wife's minivan, I thought, And

736
00:46:27,040 --> 00:46:29,680
Speaker 2: so I drove down to school because one of our

737
00:46:29,719 --> 00:46:33,880
Speaker 2: faculty members had just died and there was going to

738
00:46:33,920 --> 00:46:36,200
Speaker 2: be a memorial service for him, and Chucks Windall was

739
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 2: was going to be speaking giving the eulogy, and so

740
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:43,080
Speaker 2: I said, Patty, I've got to drive the minivan. She

741
00:46:43,160 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 2: was at work that day, so she had to drive

742
00:46:45,239 --> 00:46:49,479
Speaker 2: my stick shift. She hates that carpet. Anyway, I drove

743
00:46:49,480 --> 00:46:54,200
Speaker 2: her minivan, and then I got to the church after school,

744
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: went to the memorial service. There was a meal afterwards,

745
00:46:58,000 --> 00:47:00,759
Speaker 2: and so I was able to eat and enjoy some fellowship.

746
00:47:01,840 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 2: When I got out to the minivan and I'm wheeling

747
00:47:03,920 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 2: myself out, I'm standing there trying to put the wheelchair

748
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 2: in the car and I couldn't lift it. I was

749
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:13,840
Speaker 2: there for probably twenty minutes trying to lift it. I

750
00:47:13,880 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 2: didn't know what to do, and I thought, well, I'll

751
00:47:18,320 --> 00:47:21,080
Speaker 2: just go in the car and sleep in the back

752
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:25,000
Speaker 2: until morning. That's what I was figured i'd need to do.

753
00:47:25,480 --> 00:47:28,719
Speaker 2: Didn't have cell phones back in ninety seven, and so

754
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 2: there was another car in the parking lot. I didn't

755
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,399
Speaker 2: know whose it was, but I just pretty much gave up.

756
00:47:36,280 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 2: It was Chuck and Cynthia and all. Chuck came over

757
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 2: and said, Dan, looks like you need some help. Yeah,

758
00:47:42,520 --> 00:47:44,759
Speaker 2: how good? Dairy is he is? And he said, he said,

759
00:47:44,840 --> 00:47:46,160
Speaker 2: let me help you with this. So he sticks the

760
00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:48,400
Speaker 2: wheelchair in the car and he drives me home and

761
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 2: Cynthia follows, and I got out of the car and

762
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: went into the house. I said, guys, you got to

763
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 2: come out here. You have no idea who's in our driveway.

764
00:47:58,640 --> 00:48:02,239
Speaker 2: But he was ministering to me after he had just

765
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 2: spent a day ministering to the whole body of Christ

766
00:48:05,400 --> 00:48:10,919
Speaker 2: about this fallen faculty member who died, Dave Edwards. And

767
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 2: it was really a profound, humbling ministry that he took

768
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:18,200
Speaker 2: on himself. And I'll never forget that one of the

769
00:48:18,239 --> 00:48:21,840
Speaker 2: great lessons. And I'd say it was a great surprise

770
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 2: to us. It came out of left field. You know,

771
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 2: I'm reconnecting my intellectual life with my spiritual life. That

772
00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:32,520
Speaker 2: lesson really came back to me when my son had

773
00:48:32,600 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 2: cancer and with the encephalitis. I was already putting those

774
00:48:36,320 --> 00:48:39,879
Speaker 2: two together. But what I had not put together was

775
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,960
Speaker 2: the body of Christ. We you know, I was in

776
00:48:46,000 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 2: and out of the hospital so often, and it was

777
00:48:49,120 --> 00:48:51,840
Speaker 2: just wearing Patty out. The boys didn't know what was

778
00:48:51,880 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 2: going on, and people brought us meals. They brought us

779
00:48:55,040 --> 00:49:00,480
Speaker 2: dinner for months months, and on top of that that

780
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:04,040
Speaker 2: was from our church. Others from other places brought us meals.

781
00:49:04,600 --> 00:49:06,640
Speaker 2: And then there was a church down in Houston where

782
00:49:06,640 --> 00:49:10,200
Speaker 2: I had ministered before a few times, and they paid

783
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 2: for virtually all of my medical costs. Oh it was

784
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:21,160
Speaker 2: thousands of dollars. And what I came away realizing is, oh,

785
00:49:21,160 --> 00:49:24,640
Speaker 2: my gosh, it's not just character. The Lord is building.

786
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 2: He's building his body, and they, just the Body of

787
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:32,560
Speaker 2: Christ loves to minister to those who are in need.

788
00:49:33,080 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: And when we keep our suffering to ourselves the body

789
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:41,000
Speaker 2: of Christ is they miss out on being able to

790
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 2: give you a blessing. And that's what the body does.

791
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 2: So I learned a great and very humbling lesson because

792
00:49:49,040 --> 00:49:54,839
Speaker 2: it wasn't academia, wasn't scholarship, it wasn't exegesis. It was

793
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: lay people who didn't know any Greek and whose theology

794
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 2: was probably pretty primitive at times, who were the hands

795
00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:03,840
Speaker 2: and feet of Jesus ministering to me.

796
00:50:04,600 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 1: Well, that's real practical then, Why people should be connected

797
00:50:08,480 --> 00:50:11,759
Speaker 1: to a spiritual body so that you can receive or

798
00:50:11,920 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: you can give.

799
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:17,680
Speaker 2: Don't neglect the gathering of her shells together, as the

800
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:19,000
Speaker 2: author of Hebrews should.

801
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:23,760
Speaker 1: With all the struggles that you were dealing with with encephalitis,

802
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:26,920
Speaker 1: and yet you kept going back to your work, which

803
00:50:26,960 --> 00:50:30,000
Speaker 1: is textual criticism.

804
00:50:30,200 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 2: What drove you?

805
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:35,080
Speaker 1: What was the passion behind doing that, especially going through

806
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: what you were going through.

807
00:50:37,400 --> 00:50:40,719
Speaker 2: You know, Jesus really changed my life. But I made

808
00:50:40,760 --> 00:50:43,640
Speaker 2: a radical commitment to Christ when I was sixteen, and

809
00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 2: I committed my life to full time Christian vocational ministry

810
00:50:49,480 --> 00:50:52,719
Speaker 2: at that point, so there is no turning back. When

811
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:55,880
Speaker 2: I had the encephalitis and I lost my languages and

812
00:50:55,920 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 2: I'm trying to relearn Hebrew and Greek and you know

813
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,680
Speaker 2: all the other stuff that I learned, I wasn't even

814
00:51:02,800 --> 00:51:05,520
Speaker 2: thinking of dropping out of ministry. This is what God

815
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:09,680
Speaker 2: had called me to. And then I had always this

816
00:51:09,840 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 2: fascination with the manuscripts of actually looking at each unique

817
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 2: handwritten document that scribes hundreds of years. Sometimes seventeen eighteen

818
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,880
Speaker 2: hundred years ago, wrote that we still have in existence

819
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:29,440
Speaker 2: today to look at these handwritten copies of scripture. It's

820
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:32,480
Speaker 2: been just a thrill to be able to do that,

821
00:51:33,840 --> 00:51:37,880
Speaker 2: and more than a thrill if it were not for

822
00:51:37,920 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 2: these scribes, we would not know Jesus because the incarnate

823
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:46,320
Speaker 2: word is known through the written word, and the written

824
00:51:46,360 --> 00:51:49,840
Speaker 2: word is known through these faithful men and women's scribes

825
00:51:50,480 --> 00:51:53,400
Speaker 2: over the centuries, who copied in some of the worst

826
00:51:53,440 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 2: conditions possible. And if I'm in a place where it's

827
00:51:57,560 --> 00:52:02,200
Speaker 2: ninety five degrees and I'm hydrated, it doesn't even come

828
00:52:02,280 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 2: close to comparing to the kind of situations they these

829
00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:08,560
Speaker 2: scribes faced. I consider my work, the work of CS

830
00:52:08,600 --> 00:52:11,040
Speaker 2: and TMP, to be an extension of what they did.

831
00:52:11,960 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 2: They the scribes actually did not even have writing desks

832
00:52:15,560 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 2: for the first seven or eight hundred years. They have

833
00:52:19,320 --> 00:52:21,799
Speaker 2: the manuscript on their knees writing it out. How do

834
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:26,640
Speaker 2: you do that for centuries? And there's a we have

835
00:52:26,680 --> 00:52:31,200
Speaker 2: a manuscript, we photographed a manuscript that there's a prayer

836
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 2: at the end of the manuscript and the scribe says,

837
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 2: it's about one thousand years after AD something like that.

838
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:44,520
Speaker 2: And the scribe says, Lord, if it's possible, please find

839
00:52:44,520 --> 00:52:48,680
Speaker 2: a writing desk for me. The scribe a thousand years

840
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 2: later still has to bend over, hunched back on and

841
00:52:54,000 --> 00:52:57,879
Speaker 2: write this manuscript out on his knees, six hours a day,

842
00:52:58,600 --> 00:53:02,040
Speaker 2: six days a week. It was just brutal work. Who

843
00:53:02,080 --> 00:53:04,759
Speaker 2: am I to say it's difficult for me, It's a

844
00:53:04,800 --> 00:53:07,759
Speaker 2: torture for me. These people have We're just standing on

845
00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:10,479
Speaker 2: the shoulder of these faithful men and women to bring

846
00:53:10,520 --> 00:53:16,880
Speaker 2: the worth God to folks today. Textual criticism is the

847
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,920
Speaker 2: discipline of trying to get back to the original wording

848
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:26,200
Speaker 2: of a document whose originals have disappeared or dissolved that

849
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 2: we don't have them anymore. We have to do that

850
00:53:29,680 --> 00:53:34,319
Speaker 2: even with modern things, Shakespeare's plays, for example, we have

851
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 2: to do textra criticism on that Lincoln's Gettysburg address. There

852
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:42,879
Speaker 2: were no tape recorders when he gave his address, there

853
00:53:42,920 --> 00:53:48,960
Speaker 2: were eyewitnesses. His secretaries produced some drafts that were after

854
00:53:49,000 --> 00:53:53,000
Speaker 2: the fact. We think newspaper reporters did it. But there

855
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:56,319
Speaker 2: are five basic copies of the Gettysburg Address and they

856
00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:00,720
Speaker 2: don't agree with each other exactly. So to do textra

857
00:54:00,840 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 2: criticism to try to determine the wording of the original

858
00:54:03,640 --> 00:54:05,799
Speaker 2: of the Gettysburg address, What are they going to put

859
00:54:05,840 --> 00:54:08,280
Speaker 2: up at the Lincoln Monument. They had to do textra

860
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 2: criticism to figure that out. Same thing with the New Testament.

861
00:54:13,080 --> 00:54:16,000
Speaker 2: It has suffered the same kind of deterioration that other

862
00:54:16,080 --> 00:54:22,200
Speaker 2: ancient writings have, except that there are far more copies

863
00:54:22,280 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 2: of the New Testament than anything else from the Greco

864
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:28,360
Speaker 2: Roman world. And we have far earlier copies of the

865
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 2: New Testament than anything else from the Greco Roman world.

866
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 1: Somewhere like fifty seven hundred.

867
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:37,960
Speaker 2: Fifty seven hundred manuscripts in Greek alone, and it started

868
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:41,120
Speaker 2: to get translated into ancient languages Latin and Coptic and

869
00:54:41,239 --> 00:54:45,160
Speaker 2: Syriac starting in the late second early third century. Those

870
00:54:45,280 --> 00:54:49,000
Speaker 2: versions are very important to give as it kind of

871
00:54:49,040 --> 00:54:52,480
Speaker 2: freezes the Greek manuscript they had at that time into

872
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:55,880
Speaker 2: that version. So we may not have that manuscript that

873
00:54:55,920 --> 00:54:58,319
Speaker 2: they had from say the early second century, but we

874
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:01,879
Speaker 2: have a translation it coming one hundred years five hundred

875
00:55:01,920 --> 00:55:04,840
Speaker 2: years later sometimes, and that tells us what that Greek

876
00:55:04,880 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: manuscript said.

877
00:55:06,080 --> 00:55:08,640
Speaker 1: So this is a way for us to know that

878
00:55:08,920 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 1: the text we have now is trustworthy because of the

879
00:55:12,960 --> 00:55:14,360
Speaker 1: work of textual criticism.

880
00:55:14,520 --> 00:55:19,320
Speaker 2: Exactly. Text your criticism is the foundation of all human knowledge.

881
00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 2: When it comes to documents before the time in the

882
00:55:21,840 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 2: printing press, it's absolutely necessary. It's always been considered the

883
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 2: great humanities discipline, not just humanities, but when it came

884
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:36,240
Speaker 2: to the first time the Greek New Testament was published

885
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:40,319
Speaker 2: on a printing press in fifteen sixteen by Erasmus. He

886
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 2: had to use manuscripts, and he had to make decisions

887
00:55:43,080 --> 00:55:45,560
Speaker 2: on the basis of those manuscripts as to what he's

888
00:55:45,560 --> 00:55:47,840
Speaker 2: going to print if there's going to be overlap between them.

889
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 2: And since that time there have been millions of man

890
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:56,520
Speaker 2: and woman hours put into the study of the Greek

891
00:55:56,520 --> 00:55:59,960
Speaker 2: New Testament. There have been scholars. One scholar went to

892
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:03,799
Speaker 2: the Vatican and wanted to look at Codex Vaticanus, a

893
00:56:03,800 --> 00:56:06,879
Speaker 2: fourth century manuscript that originally had the whole Bible. It's

894
00:56:06,880 --> 00:56:10,279
Speaker 2: a huge manuscript. It's just beautiful, and it's one of

895
00:56:10,320 --> 00:56:13,120
Speaker 2: the two or three most important mainuscripts we have of

896
00:56:13,160 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 2: the Greek New Testament, because even though it's written in

897
00:56:15,920 --> 00:56:19,600
Speaker 2: the mid three hundreds, its text goes back very early.

898
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:24,480
Speaker 2: It's in most places, i'd say it goes back to

899
00:56:24,520 --> 00:56:29,160
Speaker 2: the original wording. It's extremely important. Well, this Protestants scribe

900
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:32,440
Speaker 2: is at the Vatican in the mid eighteen hundreds and

901
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,360
Speaker 2: he has two monks standing there. He's not allowed to

902
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:39,279
Speaker 2: touch the manuscript. And when I looked at Vaticanis, I

903
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:40,799
Speaker 2: was not allowed to touch it. I spent a week

904
00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:44,520
Speaker 2: with it also in the Vatican manuscript room, and these

905
00:56:44,560 --> 00:56:47,120
Speaker 2: monks were standing there and he was not allowed to

906
00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:51,319
Speaker 2: take any notes. He's looking at the text, and when

907
00:56:51,360 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 2: they felt that he was memorizing, then they'd turned the page,

908
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,400
Speaker 2: so he couldn't memorize much. This went on for a week.

909
00:56:58,880 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 2: He goes back to his cell every night and he

910
00:57:00,880 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 2: writes down what he remembered. That's incredible. He's doing tech

911
00:57:06,200 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 2: criticism of this manuscript from memory. It's been a discipline

912
00:57:10,719 --> 00:57:14,200
Speaker 2: to get us back to the original wording and through

913
00:57:14,239 --> 00:57:19,680
Speaker 2: these imperfect copies that we have written by frail human

914
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 2: beings who might have a bad memory, a poor handwriting.

915
00:57:23,840 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 2: They might have copies where they look at two different

916
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:31,160
Speaker 2: copies and they say, I'm going to follow this one,

917
00:57:31,160 --> 00:57:35,080
Speaker 2: and they make mistakes about that they read something wrong

918
00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:38,040
Speaker 2: in a line, that they might skip a line, or

919
00:57:38,040 --> 00:57:40,840
Speaker 2: they might add a line. There are so many mistakes

920
00:57:40,880 --> 00:57:46,120
Speaker 2: in our manuscripts that the best estimate we have is

921
00:57:46,200 --> 00:57:51,960
Speaker 2: somewhere around one and a half million differences among our

922
00:57:52,000 --> 00:57:57,000
Speaker 2: Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. A million and a half. Now,

923
00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:00,200
Speaker 2: you might say, if you all have that status that

924
00:58:00,240 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 2: you'd say, Oh my gosh, how could we ever possibly

925
00:58:02,760 --> 00:58:07,160
Speaker 2: get back to the original. Well, here's the thing. Over

926
00:58:07,200 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 2: seventy percent of them are just spelling differences or nonsense.

927
00:58:11,240 --> 00:58:14,040
Speaker 2: Easy to get back to those. It's like if you

928
00:58:14,080 --> 00:58:16,960
Speaker 2: saw a manuscript, a handwritten manuscript of the Constitution, and

929
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,160
Speaker 2: you're reading the preamble, we the people of the United States,

930
00:58:20,160 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 2: in order to form a more perfect onion. Oh, you know,

931
00:58:24,040 --> 00:58:27,880
Speaker 2: it's not on unit's union. So most of these mistakes

932
00:58:28,160 --> 00:58:31,240
Speaker 2: can easily be corrected. There's a bunch of them. I

933
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:33,560
Speaker 2: don't know what the percentage is, maybe fifteen percent that

934
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,560
Speaker 2: can even be translated to the differences. I did an

935
00:58:36,560 --> 00:58:41,040
Speaker 2: exercise once. It took me eight hours to write out

936
00:58:41,160 --> 00:58:44,560
Speaker 2: how many ways can you say John loves Mary in Greek?

937
00:58:45,240 --> 00:58:48,840
Speaker 2: Eight hours and I didn't finish the task. I came

938
00:58:48,920 --> 00:58:51,760
Speaker 2: up with three hundred and forty eighty four different ways

939
00:58:51,760 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 2: to say John loves Mary. Because word orders can different.

940
00:58:55,200 --> 00:58:57,560
Speaker 2: The same word for loves agapallo each time, and at

941
00:58:57,600 --> 00:59:01,760
Speaker 2: present tense, there's different spelling for John, different spellings for Mary.

942
00:59:01,800 --> 00:59:04,720
Speaker 2: They use the article with each name or they don't,

943
00:59:04,880 --> 00:59:08,480
Speaker 2: or with both names or neither, and you're.

944
00:59:08,360 --> 00:59:10,440
Speaker 1: Having the time of your life doing as.

945
00:59:10,280 --> 00:59:12,920
Speaker 2: Out to do this, and I figured, I think I

946
00:59:13,040 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 2: proved my point. Actually, there were another one hundred and

947
00:59:16,880 --> 00:59:19,760
Speaker 2: fifty that I could have produced, and then I completely

948
00:59:19,760 --> 00:59:23,480
Speaker 2: forgot about another entire construction. So I would have to

949
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:27,320
Speaker 2: say there are over one thousand ways that you can

950
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:31,560
Speaker 2: say John loves Mary in Greek without changing the meaning

951
00:59:31,680 --> 00:59:37,000
Speaker 2: at all, just slight emphasis difference. That's it. Now. If

952
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:40,080
Speaker 2: we have that many different ways to say John loves

953
00:59:40,120 --> 00:59:43,040
Speaker 2: Mary in Greek where it doesn't change the meaning, how

954
00:59:43,040 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 2: many variants could we have among our New Testament manuscripts

955
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:52,720
Speaker 2: where the meaning is not touched? Millions upon millions, billions, perhaps.

956
00:59:52,560 --> 00:59:56,280
Speaker 1: So a question that a person might ask, that well

957
00:59:56,320 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 1: student might ask, is God, why not just leave the

958
01:00:01,520 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 1: originals so we don't have to go through all this?

959
01:00:04,840 --> 01:00:07,840
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you've heard that question a multitude of times,

960
01:00:07,880 --> 01:00:11,720
Speaker 1: to which your response is, if God left.

961
01:00:11,520 --> 01:00:16,720
Speaker 2: Us with the originals, they would probably be enshrined and

962
01:00:17,360 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 2: put in some kind of a sanctuary idolatry of that

963
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:24,920
Speaker 2: way we go, Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a church

964
01:00:24,960 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 2: in Ethiopia that says they have the original arc of

965
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,640
Speaker 2: the Covenant, but nobody gets to see it. Oh, that's

966
01:00:30,680 --> 01:00:33,520
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that would happen, and it would

967
01:00:33,560 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 2: just be worshiped. But it's not that God did not

968
01:00:38,080 --> 01:00:41,120
Speaker 2: leave us the original because it would be worshiped. In

969
01:00:41,160 --> 01:00:45,120
Speaker 2: a sense, what God did is exactly what has happened

970
01:00:45,160 --> 01:00:47,680
Speaker 2: to all ancient literature. We don't have the originals of

971
01:00:47,720 --> 01:00:51,280
Speaker 2: any Greco Roman literature, none of it, because it's gone

972
01:00:51,360 --> 01:00:55,280
Speaker 2: through the process of deterioration over the centuries. What we

973
01:00:55,440 --> 01:00:59,240
Speaker 2: do have, though, or early copies, we have portions of

974
01:00:59,320 --> 01:01:03,360
Speaker 2: John's Gospel within decades. When John wrote the Gospel, I

975
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:07,600
Speaker 2: think sus do is put it this way. He said,

976
01:01:07,800 --> 01:01:14,640
Speaker 2: when a miracle enters into the natural realm, time, space, history,

977
01:01:14,760 --> 01:01:20,080
Speaker 2: the normal effects of what happens in life takes place.

978
01:01:20,920 --> 01:01:24,400
Speaker 2: If you have supernatural pregnancy, it will end in a

979
01:01:24,560 --> 01:01:28,720
Speaker 2: birth of a child, namely one Jesus. That's the only one.

980
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:32,960
Speaker 2: If you create wine at a wedding, it's going to

981
01:01:33,000 --> 01:01:36,760
Speaker 2: be possible to get people drunk. If you create fish

982
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:40,960
Speaker 2: and lows for five thousand, it's five thousand men, not

983
01:01:41,040 --> 01:01:44,840
Speaker 2: counting women and children, it's fifteen twenty thousand people there.

984
01:01:46,720 --> 01:01:51,200
Speaker 2: You're going to get your your bellies filled. When the

985
01:01:51,200 --> 01:01:53,800
Speaker 2: miracle happens. And I take it that the writing of

986
01:01:53,840 --> 01:01:57,880
Speaker 2: scripture by these apostles and their associates, it was done

987
01:01:58,080 --> 01:02:00,840
Speaker 2: by the superintendents of the Holy Spirit, so that they

988
01:02:00,920 --> 01:02:06,240
Speaker 2: wrote in complete control of their faculties, with their own personality,

989
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 2: and yet the Holy Spirit superintendent over the writing. So

990
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,560
Speaker 2: it's exactly what he wanted to have written. As well.

991
01:02:13,680 --> 01:02:16,520
Speaker 2: As soon as you get copies made, now you're can have.

992
01:02:16,600 --> 01:02:19,000
Speaker 1: It enters into the natural human processes, right.

993
01:02:19,600 --> 01:02:22,520
Speaker 2: And so one scholar said just three hundred years ago,

994
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:26,400
Speaker 2: he said, in fact that the more manuscripts we have,

995
01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:29,120
Speaker 2: the more anchors we have to tell us what the

996
01:02:29,160 --> 01:02:33,000
Speaker 2: original is. And so more manuscripts is actually far better

997
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 2: than just having one or two. If he had just

998
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:38,880
Speaker 2: one manuscript, then we wouldn't know if it goes back

999
01:02:38,920 --> 01:02:41,120
Speaker 2: to the original or not. It's the only thing we've got.

1000
01:02:41,480 --> 01:02:45,160
Speaker 2: And the problem with much Greco Roman literature is they

1001
01:02:45,280 --> 01:02:50,560
Speaker 2: sometimes have very serious gaps of a particular author's writings,

1002
01:02:50,800 --> 01:02:54,040
Speaker 2: sometimes entire books by Livy that are simply gone. We

1003
01:02:54,080 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 2: know he wrote far more than we have, but you

1004
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 2: also have manuscripts. The average manuscript for the Greco Roman

1005
01:03:01,440 --> 01:03:04,760
Speaker 2: author doesn't come We don't have any for about a

1006
01:03:04,880 --> 01:03:08,800
Speaker 2: thousand years after they wrote. You take Xenophon, for example,

1007
01:03:08,840 --> 01:03:12,480
Speaker 2: one of the great historians of ancient Greece. We're waiting

1008
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:18,640
Speaker 2: eighteen hundred years before we get any our first substantial

1009
01:03:18,720 --> 01:03:23,560
Speaker 2: copy of Hellenica. Now what if you waited eighteen hundred

1010
01:03:23,640 --> 01:03:26,600
Speaker 2: years before you got your first substantial copy of the

1011
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:29,920
Speaker 2: New Testament. That means we'd have a copy right around

1012
01:03:29,960 --> 01:03:34,600
Speaker 2: the time the Wright brothers invented the airplane. Then the

1013
01:03:34,640 --> 01:03:38,640
Speaker 2: skeptics would have something to claim. But you look at

1014
01:03:38,680 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 2: all of these differences we have, and when it really

1015
01:03:41,880 --> 01:03:47,400
Speaker 2: boils down to it, those that are both meaningful that is,

1016
01:03:47,440 --> 01:03:50,600
Speaker 2: it changes the meaning to some degree and viable. That's

1017
01:03:50,640 --> 01:03:53,280
Speaker 2: a critical term that as it could possibly go back

1018
01:03:53,320 --> 01:03:56,960
Speaker 2: to the original wording. It's no more than one tenth

1019
01:03:57,760 --> 01:04:01,840
Speaker 2: of one percent of all of the differences. That's a

1020
01:04:01,960 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 2: very small amount. What's at stake. Not a single doctrine

1021
01:04:06,720 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 2: is affected by any of these variants. That's huge. That's

1022
01:04:10,640 --> 01:04:14,520
Speaker 2: that's incredible. What can you say about any other ancient

1023
01:04:14,560 --> 01:04:19,360
Speaker 2: literature that we do we know if the author author's

1024
01:04:19,360 --> 01:04:21,919
Speaker 2: writings have changed significantly, we can't get back to it. Yes,

1025
01:04:21,960 --> 01:04:24,760
Speaker 2: that's that's the case for much of it, if not

1026
01:04:24,840 --> 01:04:29,480
Speaker 2: most of it. New Testament, as the capstan of God's revelation,

1027
01:04:30,240 --> 01:04:31,600
Speaker 2: is in a unique place.

1028
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:37,120
Speaker 1: Well, you've you've helped us to understand textual criticism, You've

1029
01:04:37,160 --> 01:04:42,600
Speaker 1: helped us to benefit from it, and your work will

1030
01:04:42,640 --> 01:04:45,200
Speaker 1: continue because it helps us to know that the word

1031
01:04:45,240 --> 01:04:50,480
Speaker 1: of God we read, study, reach, teach is a trustworthy

1032
01:04:50,520 --> 01:04:52,200
Speaker 1: word from a perfect God.

1033
01:04:52,720 --> 01:04:56,720
Speaker 2: Absolutely it is. It's amazing. But I want people to

1034
01:04:56,760 --> 01:05:00,600
Speaker 2: make sure that when they hear about this, they don't

1035
01:05:00,640 --> 01:05:04,960
Speaker 2: just hear the apologetic value. They open the word, they

1036
01:05:05,000 --> 01:05:09,120
Speaker 2: read the written word, which testifies of the incarnate Word,

1037
01:05:09,680 --> 01:05:11,880
Speaker 2: because it is not the Bible that saves us, but

1038
01:05:12,000 --> 01:05:13,160
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ himself.

1039
01:05:13,960 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 1: Amen.