Speaker 1: So you were just a single solo guy. As a
Speaker 1: solo guy, yeah, okay, how long are you in the
Speaker 1: industry performing and recording?
Speaker 2: My first album was nineteen ninety nine, so.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, that's kind of a lot. And you
Speaker 1: left what year?
Speaker 3: My final tour was twenty twenty three. August of twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three.
Speaker 1: Okay, see, I like five years on the road and recording.
Speaker 1: And did you become a Christian after that? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, well, in the midst of all that you
Speaker 1: want a Christian when you started touring.
Speaker 3: I thought I was. I was a cultural Christian. I
Speaker 3: always thought, you know, grew up in a Christian home.
Speaker 3: I'm from the Bible Belt, so always could have articulated
Speaker 3: the Gospel and told you that I was a believer.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't until later in my life when the
Speaker 3: Lord radically converted me through tragedy, which which does happen
Speaker 3: quite a bit. Tragedy and suffering will test of faith
Speaker 3: and you can see the genuineness of that faith through
Speaker 3: that suffering, and I didn't have any That's what I discovered.
Speaker 3: And so when I became a Christian and then and
Speaker 3: really started reading the Bible for the first time, and
Speaker 3: not just as a devotional or as like an instruction
Speaker 3: manual for my life, but actually unfolding the narrative of
Speaker 3: God's people and what he has done, and who he
Speaker 3: is and who we are in relation to who he is.
Speaker 3: I started seeing some inconsistencies in my life, and part
Speaker 3: of that was I'm a singer exalting myself every day,
Speaker 3: and I don't know how that's reconciling with taking up
Speaker 3: my cross.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well I think it. You can be a
Speaker 1: performer and do a good job, but the mentality and
Speaker 1: attitude is really hard to manage, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is something that people in my business have to
Speaker 1: deal with. So trying to get better known and people
Speaker 1: come up to you, and they even even Amy yesterday,
Speaker 1: Amy Hall. So you know who Amy Hall is.
Speaker 2: I don't think so.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, So I'm not sure how fully you are
Speaker 1: with Standard Reason. But we have two podcasts. We have
Speaker 1: two hours a week to hours a week where I
Speaker 1: do the podcast and we have two other separate twenty
Speaker 1: five minute segments where Amy Hall on our team takes
Speaker 1: questions that gets sent in and she asked me the questions,
Speaker 1: I respond and then she adds brilliance to it. So
Speaker 1: that's Amy. So Amy's got a cult following too, as
Speaker 1: it turns out, of big fans that she's not even
Speaker 1: aware of because she doesn't get out much. It's just
Speaker 1: she does the radio stuff. But when she does show
Speaker 1: up at events, people flock to her. Oh Amy kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But anyway, Amy said, and our star Greg
Speaker 1: cochol I said, Amy, don't even talk like that. I
Speaker 1: said that out of the air because I don't want
Speaker 1: people to I don't want to think of my stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I don't want people to think of myself.
Speaker 1: I'm just hey, I'm here as a brother in the Lord.
Speaker 1: I'm offering something that may be useful, and you should
Speaker 1: be doing the same kind of thing with other people
Speaker 1: in your life. Okay, this is just what I do.
Speaker 1: So we have to. I think all of us have
Speaker 1: to be vigilant. So I think it's possible to be
Speaker 1: really effective in the say, in the music business, but
Speaker 1: it is very hard because so many people are genuflecting
Speaker 1: to you, bowing down to you, saying all of these
Speaker 1: wonderful things that may be true about your craft, but
Speaker 1: people take them way too seriously. So I just saw
Speaker 1: just a couple of days ago. Actually, on the way back.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much time you have here, so
Speaker 1: I want to be sensitive to that.
Speaker 2: But go ahead, and I'm here to here. I'm here
Speaker 2: to listen to you.
Speaker 1: We're just kind of getting warmed up a little bit.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 1: I'll follow you wherever you want to go. It's all right,
Speaker 1: it's your show. And I've heard here to help that out.
Speaker 1: But but I watched a Complete Unknown on the flight
Speaker 1: back from Dallas from uh from Nashville on Sunday night,
Speaker 1: and that's about a Bob Dylan.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Have you seen this?
Speaker 2: I have not seen it. I've heard about Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Really enjoyed it. But I experienced this film on a
Speaker 1: number of levels. Now, I was born in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: and so this is sixty to sixty five of Bob Dylan.
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with that time. That's when they had
Speaker 1: the Cuban missile crisis in sixty two, that's when John
Speaker 1: Kennedy was assassinated in sixty three, and they're showing this
Speaker 1: new stuff in the background with Walter Cronkite Man. I
Speaker 1: have a vivid memory of all of that stuff. And
Speaker 1: I also have a memory of the burgeoning countercultural movement
Speaker 1: that Bob Dylan was a significant part of. And so
Speaker 1: it's very interesting to see. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: follow his career at all, but it's really an amazing career.
Speaker 1: And it may be that he's a Christian testimony now,
Speaker 1: but he sure wasn't then he was a nobody. They
Speaker 1: followed from when he's a nobody to when he's Probably
Speaker 1: the argue with sixty five. Now this says the Beatles
Speaker 1: had just just kind of began to penetrate a little
Speaker 1: bit in sixty, say, sixty three and sixty four the
Speaker 1: American population, and so they were big. But the It's
Speaker 1: one didn't deal with any of that stuff. It dealt
Speaker 1: with this burgeoning folk music kind of thing that he
Speaker 1: was a part of, and he was like an unbelievable
Speaker 1: superstar by sixty five starts at sixty sixty. But you
Speaker 1: could see the corruption. Well, I want to be careful
Speaker 1: wh I say this. There was it certainly had a
Speaker 1: corruptic influence on his life, but he was already corrupted.
Speaker 1: He was not a virtuous man. He was utterly selfish,
Speaker 1: and self centered and self consumed. He did not care
Speaker 1: about anyone's feelings about anything. All he cared about was himself.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if that's actually accurate characterization, but
Speaker 1: this is a biopic that's done about the guy who's
Speaker 1: still alive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should say something about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems too he's in a place to say
Speaker 1: that's not true about me or whatever, that didn't happen
Speaker 1: that way or whatever. But anyway, those.
Speaker 3: Are good characteristics to be a good popular singer. To
Speaker 3: care only about yourself because you are the product.
Speaker 1: See I wonder though if that's necessary. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's one thing too. I understand that you are the product, okay,
Speaker 1: but how you how you characterize yourself as the product?
Speaker 1: You can look at the proverb says, let another praise
Speaker 1: you and not your own self. Okay, so don't praise yourself,
Speaker 1: but let other people pray. Use as appropriate. But that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you let it go to your head. And
Speaker 1: now I'm not going to talk to people who are
Speaker 1: beneath me. I'm gonna babb a boh this. Then there
Speaker 1: are people in the business. I don't know about your business,
Speaker 1: But who is the guy here, I'm trying to download names.
Speaker 2: That's okay.
Speaker 1: Well, I know Kirk Camera for example. He just lives
Speaker 1: down the road and we get together from now and
Speaker 1: we've known each other a long time. Kirk is a
Speaker 1: true blue, absolutely down to earth, totally humble guy. But
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's got he's got a great CV
Speaker 1: in terms of his contribution. Now, people haven't noticed him
Speaker 1: much lately. He does faith films and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But then who's the other guy who is the great? Well,
Speaker 1: I can say is like the kung fu guy with
Speaker 1: the beard, and he had a TV show for a while.
Speaker 1: He's very very accomplished martial arts guy. When martial arts
Speaker 1: he made a movie with Bruce Lee and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of his name. He's an older
Speaker 1: guy now, Zackie. No, no, no, this is a white guy.
Speaker 1: So if I said a debut, do it. But I
Speaker 1: saw him in the airport once, okay, and I didn't
Speaker 1: talk to him, but some kids came up to him.
Speaker 1: They recognized it because he had a TV show and uh, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: remember say but he is oh, he was great, you know,
Speaker 1: no airs about him at all. He was just down
Speaker 1: to earth kind of person. And so here's a guy
Speaker 1: with a lot of fame, and yet he was a
Speaker 1: very easygoing kind of person, very ordinary and very approachable.
Speaker 1: There are people like that in the industry and they
Speaker 1: don't let it go to their heads. So I think
Speaker 1: it's possible to do that a certain field, certainly, but
Speaker 1: it's hard.
Speaker 3: So Kirk Kirk and I have actually had this conversation,
Speaker 3: this very conversation, and he has he'll readily admit that
Speaker 3: it's dangerous for him.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, so we need to surround ourselves with people that
Speaker 3: can buffer that protect us, give us some level of
Speaker 3: protection by not just becoming yes men, uh, but but
Speaker 3: men that are that could be around us and not
Speaker 3: afraid to say I think you're wrong on that, buddy, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think.
Speaker 3: I don't think you're you're you're good here and and
Speaker 3: and so Kirk it has told me that over the
Speaker 3: years he's he has struggled because when people do praise you,
Speaker 3: it's it's a little.
Speaker 2: Bit of poison to you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just got to be careful of it and mindful.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, Jesus, Jesus, people praise Jesus a lot too.
Speaker 1: At least for the first staff of his ministry, you know.
Speaker 1: But you know it's it's just got built in liabilities
Speaker 1: and we have to be careful of and frankly, from
Speaker 1: what I understand about the CCM industry, you know, most
Speaker 1: people have not fared well in the midst of that.
Speaker 1: You know, that's right, do you know Alisa Childers? Yes, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so I mean she says that is such a corrupt
Speaker 1: industry on the Christian side, the CCM sign.
Speaker 3: I know, we had an artist, a famous artists here
Speaker 3: just the other day. Yeah, it's hard. Yeah, And I
Speaker 3: do say I usually need to add this to my
Speaker 3: story that it wasn't only the me to feel the
Speaker 3: need to back away from the industry because of some
Speaker 3: kind of.
Speaker 2: Feeling of self exaltation. There was also, to.
Speaker 3: The Lord's credit, he was reducing a passion that I
Speaker 3: had for it and raising it in other areas.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's great, that's really great. Well it made it easier, huh,
Speaker 1: that's right. People have to make the hard choice. I
Speaker 1: think Kirk might have an example. I mean, this guy
Speaker 1: was at the was I mean, he's one of the
Speaker 1: I don't know what they call him now, but like
Speaker 1: he was one of those boy charmer types. You know,
Speaker 1: he was on the face of the teen idol magazines
Speaker 1: and whatever. But you know, I don't know they ever
Speaker 1: lost his passion for what he was doing. But the
Speaker 1: Lord got a wholettle bit of a good way. Is
Speaker 1: his sister's still working a lot. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that's working out for her, but but the
Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear that you have somebody like Kirk
Speaker 1: because I'm sure sure you'd agree with me. He's a
Speaker 1: true blue. This guy is just fabulous, you know he is.
Speaker 1: He for like for many years. On my birthday, get
Speaker 1: a note from him just saying, Hey, I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: just a guy, you know down the street. You know,
Speaker 1: I got some things I do and he appreciates that.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't like I was, you know, he's kissing
Speaker 1: up to me or anything. But he was just encouraging me.
Speaker 1: So it was really sweet.
Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Well you're I'm not I'm not sure if it was
Speaker 3: your secretary or who who we reached out to to
Speaker 3: set this up.
Speaker 1: Darcy. Darcy, Yeah, we don't have secretary, okay. Colleagues and co.
Speaker 3: Workers, Colleagues and co workers, Darcy said respectfully. Darcy said,
Speaker 3: may I ask why you would like to speak with
Speaker 3: Greg in this podcast? And I think that was a
Speaker 3: great question, and I think part of it, there's evidence
Speaker 3: in what we've talked about so far that that was
Speaker 3: a valid question.
Speaker 2: So maybe I should tell you how I know you? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was.
Speaker 3: I was in a couple of years ago in a
Speaker 3: seminary class and doctor Timothy Booker do you know you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know him.
Speaker 2: It's southern. Oh yeah, in Louisville, Yes, in Louisville, Louisville,
Speaker 2: and so mixed up.
Speaker 3: This was a personal evangelism class. We get assigned, you know,
Speaker 3: the pile of books, as as every class assigns, and
Speaker 3: then there's there was this one in that pile and
Speaker 3: I started going through this and I just became so
Speaker 3: fascinated by you in your ministry. And like I said,
Speaker 3: this was a couple of years ago, so perhaps I'm
Speaker 3: late on this interview. But as we started putting together
Speaker 3: a list of who I would like to talk to,
Speaker 3: I just thought if I could talk to Greg Cochle,
Speaker 3: that would be fantastic. And I don't really care if
Speaker 3: we release it or not. I would just like to
Speaker 3: have a conversation.
Speaker 1: And I'm easy, you know, I'm not like it's just
Speaker 1: schedule concerns, that's all. But I'm you know, I talked
Speaker 1: to lots of folk. Actually, there's a gal all right
Speaker 1: in Nashville. You might know her dad. Her name is
Speaker 1: Ava Cook, I think Abra Cochrane, and her dad is
Speaker 1: named dot Dan and he's a young guy. Yeah do
Speaker 1: you know that name?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I do.
Speaker 1: Oh, okay, Well she's like, well when she interviewed me,
Speaker 1: she was probably fourteen. She was fourteen years old. She's
Speaker 1: got her own podcas us and everything. You know, she's
Speaker 1: probably seventeen now. But my view was, all right, if
Speaker 1: I can have an impact through her or even if
Speaker 1: it's a small audience, I'm.
Speaker 2: Happy for that.
Speaker 1: Plus I wanted to I wanted to encourage her as
Speaker 1: as a person who's doing something unique. And you know
Speaker 1: how many fourteen year olds do that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: There's a few, but not many, and so so that's
Speaker 1: I mean, that's my general view is, like, like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not hard to get. I'm glad to be here
Speaker 1: with you. And as long as the schedule stuff works
Speaker 1: out for me, you know, and I can make a contribution,
Speaker 1: be an encouragement to you. Look at the way I
Speaker 1: look at it, Granger, If if we if we never
Speaker 1: do the podcast after our conversation here, my trust is
Speaker 1: that God is going to will have made a contribution
Speaker 1: in your life that's that's useful and will be durable.
Speaker 1: I mean, And that's what time I'll spend this for us.
Speaker 1: If that's all we get out of.
Speaker 3: This, and then well, what really the way if you
Speaker 3: could imagine there's a lot of country music people that
Speaker 3: kind of have bled over into this and to this
Speaker 3: program now, and so I find a unique opportunity now
Speaker 3: to collect things like your book Tactics, to collect people
Speaker 3: like Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort and Frank Turk, and
Speaker 3: collect these guys and put them on a on a
Speaker 3: platform of people, perhaps even a younger generation that goes
Speaker 3: I don't know Ray Comfort, I don't know Frank Turk
Speaker 3: or Greg Cochele.
Speaker 2: Who are they?
Speaker 3: And so then I say, well, let me provide a
Speaker 3: special window into something that I've loved for a long time,
Speaker 3: and let me have some some discussions that that might
Speaker 3: open up a door to someone else.
Speaker 2: As you said that the Lord could use.
Speaker 3: When did you first realize that you had a gifting
Speaker 3: in apologetics?
Speaker 1: Do you want to start rolling and this will be
Speaker 1: part of the interview or.
Speaker 2: Would you be would you be mad at me if
Speaker 2: I told you we've been rolling since we.
Speaker 1: Started talk all, you can use whatever you want, so
Speaker 1: and edit if you want. I mean, there's nothing I've
Speaker 1: said that you know it's discreditable. Anyway, I was going
Speaker 1: to ask you that the end, okay, when the warning
Speaker 1: would have been good at the beginning, because sometimes I'm
Speaker 1: a bit earthy, Let's put it that way. The way
Speaker 1: the question was when did I when.
Speaker 3: Did you realize you had a gifting and apologetics in
Speaker 3: Christian apologetics?
Speaker 1: Well, actually, I would not look at it that way. Wait, Grader,
Speaker 1: I began developing an interest in it very early on.
Speaker 1: And because now I'm almost fifty two years in christ
Speaker 1: even though I became a Christian as a young adult
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three, so it was twenty three years old,
Speaker 1: I realized, well, first of all, I did not become
Speaker 1: a Christian in this influence in the same way like
Speaker 1: some of my colleagues. So you got a least trouble
Speaker 1: for example, Well, apologetics were a huge factory and is
Speaker 1: coming to Christ. You mentioned Frank. I think that might
Speaker 1: have been the case with Frank Turick as well, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people who do what I do. They
Speaker 1: had apologetics as a launching pad for their own convictions
Speaker 1: about Christ, and so it was natural for them to
Speaker 1: keep going. That is not the case for me. All
Speaker 1: I can say is the I mean, it's very unglamorous,
Speaker 1: but I just came to a realization over time that
Speaker 1: Christianity was true. So I guess, you know, this is
Speaker 1: the Holy Spirit obviously has to work in everybody. But
Speaker 1: this is just the way it happened. And my younger
Speaker 1: brother Mark had been the one who is sharing Christ
Speaker 1: more with me. I had run into a lot of
Speaker 1: Christians prior to that time. You know, I went to
Speaker 1: Michigan State University for a few years seventy to seventy two.
Speaker 1: You know, spring break, you want to get out of
Speaker 1: the gloam of Michigan and so down you go to
Speaker 1: Fort Lauderdale or Daytona Beech or whatever and have fun.
Speaker 1: And there's always these annoying Christians that are trying to
Speaker 1: spoil your right and they're you know, talking about this
Speaker 1: and so I was willing to engage them because I
Speaker 1: thought they were nuts. I was raised Roman Catholic, but
Speaker 1: by the time I was eighteen, I was done with that.
Speaker 1: You know, I had no conviction was actually true. And
Speaker 1: when I realized it was wasn't true. Why should I
Speaker 1: believe that? I'm off? And I thought, by the way,
Speaker 1: that I had tried Christianity, Oh yeah, been there, done that,
Speaker 1: But I hadn't obviously, and at least my own experience
Speaker 1: with Catholicism, which by the way, was pre Vatican two,
Speaker 1: so our advances were still Latin, and Vatican two moved
Speaker 1: Catholicism in a whole different direction that I don't think
Speaker 1: has been good. That's another discussion. But I'm not making
Speaker 1: a sweeping statement about Catholics and their convictions. I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: in my case, I blew this off. I don't want that, Ben,
Speaker 1: They're done that. And I was embracing the world. And
Speaker 1: this was nineteen sixty eight, was when I graduate high school.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you that there was the Beatles, there was
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones, there was the anti war movement, there
Speaker 1: was free love. There was everything exploding on the scene,
Speaker 1: which was absolutely fascinating to a young man like myself
Speaker 1: who had just kind of thrown off the shackles of
Speaker 1: religion and I'm embracing a whole the world in a
Speaker 1: new way. And this is one of the things that
Speaker 1: really touched me by watching this biopic on Bill Bobby Dylan,
Speaker 1: because as we're trafficking through sixty to sixty five, the
Speaker 1: period of that film, I'm listening to all this music
Speaker 1: that was not only familiar to me, but the words mattered,
Speaker 1: you know, the words mattered, you know, like a rolling stone,
Speaker 1: you know, with no direction home, you know, a complete unknown.
Speaker 1: Well that when you read all the lyrics of that song,
Speaker 1: he was kind of saying, this is a dismal life.
Speaker 1: But for me, that line just stood out. I didn't
Speaker 1: wasn't paying attention to everything. You just picked that. Yeah
Speaker 1: that's me, man, I'm a rolling stone. I got no direction,
Speaker 1: nobody's telling me what to do. I'm not going home.
Speaker 1: I had a bad relation with my dad. I'm gone
Speaker 1: and that was very liberating. And so when I'm listening
Speaker 1: to this, I was getting very emotional watching the movie.
Speaker 1: I did actually a number of times, but part of
Speaker 1: it was this identification with this period where I was
Speaker 1: going through this stuff. So that was a big deal,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't until years later, So that was sixty eight.
Speaker 1: By the time nineteen seventy three, my younger brother had
Speaker 1: become a Christian and he was talking to me more
Speaker 1: about Jesus. Now that's a more personal relationship, and I
Speaker 1: kind of shined him on. He was more of the job.
Speaker 1: We were all in athletics, but he was the real
Speaker 1: accomplished jock, you know. And I thought, Okay, he needs that.
Speaker 1: I don't. I was the only child of five that
Speaker 1: went to university and I was an honors college at
Speaker 1: Missigan State. Blah blah blah. I'm too smart for that,
Speaker 1: that was my thinking. Yeah, but we were both in
Speaker 1: southern California in nineteen seventy three for different reasons. But
Speaker 1: he really honed in on me, And all I can
Speaker 1: say is that I just got warned out by the
Speaker 1: message that he was offering with no apologetics. He really
Speaker 1: loved me, he was He told me, wants Greg the
Speaker 1: things that I'm telling you are true. One day you're
Speaker 1: going to find this out. I hope that when you do,
Speaker 1: it's not too late. Notice that was a very straightforward,
Speaker 1: honest statement, and the kind of statement. A lot of
Speaker 1: people aren't willing to say nowadays because they kind of
Speaker 1: gussie all this up and with God being, oh, he
Speaker 1: loves you, You're wonderful, blah blah blah. You know, it's,
Speaker 1: by the way, just a point of information. There's fourteen
Speaker 1: times the Gospel is preached in the Book of Acts,
Speaker 1: and not a single time is the love of God mentioned.
Speaker 1: These were the people who were trained by Jesus. By
Speaker 1: the way, their message is different. You want to know
Speaker 1: what the message is than all your viewers whatever, can
Speaker 1: go back and check it out. But that's what I did.
Speaker 1: I isolated all these passages. I wanted to see what
Speaker 1: the message was.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I say these things, and you know,
Speaker 3: people get mad, but I'm letting you say it is great.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: You give me a lot of latitude, you give me
Speaker 1: a rope to hang myself.
Speaker 2: No, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I mean to get now quickly to the to the point.
Speaker 1: After I became a Christian, I didn't have any of
Speaker 1: this stuff, and I had all kinds of questions that
Speaker 1: still need to answer. I was still pro abortion, a
Speaker 1: still pro evolution in the Darwinian sense. I was still
Speaker 1: let's see, you know, pre metal sex, I didn't work
Speaker 1: that thing out, you know all, and there were a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that but I was convinced that Jesus
Speaker 1: was the Savior and the grace of God was real,
Speaker 1: and I was now a recipient of the grace of God,
Speaker 1: and that changed everything, and so the other things. My
Speaker 1: statement is that you know, God catches this fish first
Speaker 1: and then he cleans them, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: that's an actually theologically accurate way of looking at it.
Speaker 1: And it was afterwards. I still had my own questions,
Speaker 1: and I'm in I mean U c l A. And
Speaker 1: I've got people on the streets of Westwood Village and
Speaker 1: there are all kinds of religious trips being peddled at
Speaker 1: that time, and I want to tell them about Jesus,
Speaker 1: and I have nothing to say in response to all
Speaker 1: of the challenges they offer me. So very quickly I
Speaker 1: got involved in a Christian community that I moved into
Speaker 1: four months after I became a Christian, maybe five and
Speaker 1: February first of seventy four. And I stayed there for
Speaker 1: two and a half years, and I got lots of
Speaker 1: training and teaching from guys that had been with the
Speaker 1: campus crusade for many years, and they all got mad
Speaker 1: at Dick da I'm sorry at Bill Bright at the
Speaker 1: same time, and they left and they started this Christian community.
Speaker 1: I mentioned the name Dick Day. He was one of
Speaker 1: the teachers there, and he had disciple Josh mcdell, and
Speaker 1: they all had DTS education Dallas Theological Seminary. So I
Speaker 1: kind of fell into this incredible environment where I had
Speaker 1: Christian community, lots of Christians around me, we all Jesus freaks,
Speaker 1: and nevertheless, we had people with street experience and evangelism
Speaker 1: and good solid theology that were there teaching us and
Speaker 1: training us on a regular basis in that school. And
Speaker 1: it was called the Jesus Christ Light and Powerhouse. Sounds
Speaker 1: kind of corny, but it was great. How I set
Speaker 1: a trajectory for my life. Anyway, I've taken up too
Speaker 1: much time. Granger with that along answer.
Speaker 3: I asked you to talk here. People are used to
Speaker 3: hearing me talk. This is wonderful. Yeah, So what I'm hearing.
Speaker 3: Part of what I'm hearing in this is that you
Speaker 3: took the time, as Paul did, as the apostle Paul did,
Speaker 3: to get educated, to be bored into before you came
Speaker 3: out and were and were shaking up the world with
Speaker 3: books like Taxis.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that first came out in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Long, So what was I that's seventy three, eighty three,
Speaker 1: ninety three, two thousand and three, that I was thirty
Speaker 1: thirty five years old Christ before I wrote that book,
Speaker 1: thirty five years of speaking on university campuses and doing radio. Well,
Speaker 1: I hadn't been doing radio only ten years at that point,
Speaker 1: no more like twenty years. In any event, there was
Speaker 1: lots of time that I had logged, and all of
Speaker 1: the things that are in that book Tactics were things
Speaker 1: that developed. It crystallized in my mind over time. I
Speaker 1: began doing this and that and the other thing, and
Speaker 1: oh wait that doesn't work well, how about this? And
Speaker 1: reflecting on these things. And I was also I already
Speaker 1: had a master's de gaate apologetics. I was ten, like
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, I was like fifteen years actually,
Speaker 1: I completed my master's degree in philosophy under JP Moorland.
Speaker 1: And so I had a lot of different stuff that
Speaker 1: I'd been building up. Kind of being a student of
Speaker 1: my craft is the way I usually put it. That
Speaker 1: then all kind of came together in this book in
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine, and then I expanded on it
Speaker 1: thirty five percent in the ten year anniversary edition, which
Speaker 1: is the one you flashed right, Yeah, got the red
Speaker 1: thing at the top.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: So you had many tools in your barn or your toolkit,
Speaker 3: and many teachers too great and many teachers are so important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that were so helpful. I drew from lots of
Speaker 1: different people that were either mentors of mine close by
Speaker 1: or mentors at a distance.
Speaker 2: That's one. Yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 3: And when was it that you developed this idea of
Speaker 3: the I don't know how you say it, the impossible question,
Speaker 3: the unanswerable question, and that is, oh are you telling.
Speaker 1: Me the one that's online?
Speaker 3: If I don't believe the way you believe, Yeah, then
Speaker 3: I'm going to help.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, that was put to me by d
Speaker 1: Pak Chilpra, who is probably the most well known New
Speaker 1: Age guru in the world. I mean, he's one of
Speaker 1: the few people who are recognized by his first name
Speaker 1: only Dpak, you know. And I think that interview happened
Speaker 1: in like two thousand, Well it's before the book came out,
Speaker 1: maybe two thousand and eight, because Les Strobel, who sponsored
Speaker 1: that event, then wanted to write the introduction to to Tactics,
Speaker 1: and that's when he hit me with that question, and
Speaker 1: so I use that kind of as a foil his statement.
Speaker 1: But of course it's come up before and when people
Speaker 1: it's like, it's the way they ask the question. If
Speaker 1: I don't believe just like you do, then you're saying
Speaker 1: I'm going to hell. Well, it's a very manipulative way
Speaker 1: to ask the question because it makes it sound like
Speaker 1: you're so egotistical. People have to believe just like you
Speaker 1: or they're going to be punished, and you're happy they're
Speaker 1: going to be punished because they're not agreeing with you.
Speaker 1: And so this is a question that has to be
Speaker 1: handled carefully. And I have been asked versions of that
Speaker 1: in a number of different ways. And in that little
Speaker 1: clip that you are making reference to that standard reason
Speaker 1: is put online, I explain the best way around that.
Speaker 1: I can't remember all the details of what I said
Speaker 1: way back when when that was up there, but it's
Speaker 1: basically the way I approach it. Actually a dpak what
Speaker 1: I said to him, because now we're on TV okay,
Speaker 1: and you've got to really manage your time, well, in
Speaker 1: a situation like that, and I deflected it. In his case,
Speaker 1: he asked the question, but I deflected it. I said, no,
Speaker 1: that's not what I'm saying, because I wasn't saying. If
Speaker 1: everybody believes doesn't believe, just like I believe, you know what,
Speaker 1: that covers a lot of ground. Right, They're going to hell,
Speaker 1: all right, Nobody goes to hell, even if you just
Speaker 1: isolated to the issue of Jesus. Nobody goes to hell
Speaker 1: because I don't believe in Jesus, not a single person.
Speaker 1: The criterion for judgment is right there in Revelation twenty.
Speaker 1: The books are open and everyone is judged according to
Speaker 1: their deeds. They're not judged as to whether Jesus saved
Speaker 1: them or not. So Jesus is the doctor. He's not
Speaker 1: the disease. He's not the thing that kills people. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like some you look at a tombstone
Speaker 1: that says cause of death, stupidity. He didn't go to
Speaker 1: the doctor. You know, well, the doctor might have saved him,
Speaker 1: but the doctor didn't kill him. Right, it's the disease
Speaker 1: that killed him or not going to the doctor didn't
Speaker 1: kill him. And in the same way. The point here
Speaker 1: is is that everyone, let me look at I'll put
Speaker 1: it this way if I have a second in this
Speaker 1: because I was asked this question by Dennis Prager, who
Speaker 1: maybe a lot of your listeners know, and I'm known
Speaker 1: for forty years. And he had me in a Q
Speaker 1: and a session. He's Jewish, and he had me in
Speaker 1: a Q and a session with probably three or four
Speaker 1: hundred Jews, and he asked me the question is we talk?
Speaker 1: He knew my answer, but he's trying to be a
Speaker 1: foil for the conversation with the Jewish audience. He said,
Speaker 1: ask me if Jesus is the only way of salvation
Speaker 1: and believing in him. Well, here's all these Jews that
Speaker 1: don't believe in Jesus. So and I told him this.
Speaker 1: So they just said, yes, you get the wrong impression.
Speaker 1: It'll sound anti Semitic, which, by the way, when people
Speaker 1: ask this question, it's meant to make the Christian look foolish.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay.
Speaker 1: And so what I said is, so let me explain it.
Speaker 1: I said, people think that, you know, God looks down
Speaker 1: on the world and sees all these religious clubs, and
Speaker 1: he plays favorites. I mean, this is the way it
Speaker 1: sounds to some people who are exclusivistic. He plays favorites,
Speaker 1: and for a long time the Jews were his favorites.
Speaker 1: Then he got really mad at the Jews. Now the
Speaker 1: Christians are his favorites, and to hell with everyone else. Yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of quite literally, I said, that's not the way
Speaker 1: it happens. God is not looking at religious clubs. He's
Speaker 1: looking at a world of human beings that he longs
Speaker 1: to be in relationship with.
Speaker 2: The is.
Speaker 1: They've rebelled against him, every single one. Yes, now this
Speaker 1: is a problem. Now they're guilty for rebelling against the
Speaker 1: sovereign of the universe. They've broken his laws countless times
Speaker 1: every day. So now what So he offers a pardon
Speaker 1: if you take the pardon on the grounds that he
Speaker 1: offers it Jesus who paid the penalty in our place
Speaker 1: and a Jewish audience, they said, much like you would
Speaker 1: sacrifice bulls and goats to cover the sin of the people,
Speaker 1: in the same way, Jesus now covers the sin of
Speaker 1: those who put their confidence in him. Now, if you
Speaker 1: don't do that, all right, you're on your own. You
Speaker 1: stand in the docket, and you have to give an
Speaker 1: accounting for your life such as it is, and you
Speaker 1: will be punished for all the crimes that you committed
Speaker 1: against God. By the way, that won't be a pretty picture.
Speaker 2: I won't.
Speaker 1: And the good things you do that doesn't work. You
Speaker 1: can't balance those out. For one, they won't balance out.
Speaker 1: You're always going to lose on that assessment, and secondly
Speaker 1: on God's criteria of sin all right. And secondly, even
Speaker 1: even in our Jewish jurisprudence system here, you can't just
Speaker 1: you know, keep all the laws and be really good citizen.
Speaker 1: And the DA gives sins. And anoying said, hey, you
Speaker 1: haven't broken any laws. Why don't you knock off a
Speaker 1: few gas stations on us because you've got credit in
Speaker 1: your account.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Now the law requires to keep them all, and you
Speaker 1: keep mall except for one, then you're guilty.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I mean that's the way law works. So that's
Speaker 1: not going to help. And I said, so here's the
Speaker 1: simple calculus. Either Jesus pays or you pay. Either Jesus
Speaker 1: pays or you pay. So it's up to you. Forget
Speaker 1: about Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and all that other stuff. We
Speaker 1: all know we're broken. We all know we're guilty, and
Speaker 1: you guys all know there's God who is just and
Speaker 1: will have justice upon those who deserve it. This is
Speaker 1: not good news.
Speaker 3: If you need to get a hold of me for
Speaker 3: any reason, go to cameo dot com slash Granger Smith.
Speaker 3: In fact, I just literally got a message from Cameo
Speaker 3: that says a guy named Ian now has a request
Speaker 3: for me. So what I do is I open this
Speaker 3: up and I go check out what Ian wants me
Speaker 3: to say for him, and for this it is a
Speaker 3: happy birthday to Melinda. So I will reach out to Melinda.
Speaker 3: I say happy birthday. It's Granger Smith here. I hope
Speaker 3: you have an amazing day. And I'm gonna tell her
Speaker 3: what else that I have here on the little list
Speaker 3: that Ian has given me. And then I send it
Speaker 3: back to him and then he has a video message
Speaker 3: from me that then goes out to Melinda. It's really cool,
Speaker 3: it's super easy. I've been doing this for about six
Speaker 3: years now. So if you want to find me and
Speaker 3: get a special video message of any kind, go to
Speaker 3: a cameo dot com slash Granger Smith.
Speaker 1: So that was essentially the message that A communicated to
Speaker 1: that particular group. But it is really the core of
Speaker 1: the way I talk to anybody who raises this question
Speaker 1: that stops Christians in their tracks because they don't know
Speaker 1: how to characterize it. They come up with slogans, Oh,
Speaker 1: Jesus is the only way he died for our sins.
Speaker 1: Of course that's all true, but it doesn't register with people.
Speaker 1: They don't. We have to try to say it in
Speaker 1: a way that makes sense to them. I felt like
Speaker 1: the explanation I gave to that Jewish audience, it'll lead.
Speaker 1: At least it was coherent, you know, they could make
Speaker 1: sense to the point I was making. Now, may not
Speaker 1: accept it. I suspect most didn't. But nevertheless, if you
Speaker 1: look at the parable of the sower in Mark thirteen,
Speaker 1: where Jesus explains the parable to the disciples, he mentions
Speaker 1: the first ground, which is hard ground on the seed
Speaker 1: is thrown on it and the birds take it away,
Speaker 1: and he says, this is the devil taking the seeds away.
Speaker 1: And I always thought, well, that's the hard headed people
Speaker 1: that it just bounces off, and a lot of those
Speaker 1: that's not the way Jesus put it. What Jesus says
Speaker 1: there in Matthew thirteen is he says, this is the
Speaker 1: people who hear the word and do not understand it,
Speaker 1: and then the devil takes out what has been sewn
Speaker 1: in their heart is what he says. It's getting in
Speaker 1: there makes no sense to them. It's gone, and so
Speaker 1: we have to talk in a way that at least
Speaker 1: makes sense to people. They can't reject something they don't understand,
Speaker 1: not in a meaningful way. They still will be judged
Speaker 1: for the rebellion. But when we bring an antidote, just
Speaker 1: like if a doctor brings an antidote to you, if
Speaker 1: they don't understand, if you don't understand what he's talking
Speaker 1: about or how to apply the antidote, you're not going
Speaker 1: to do it anyway. So there you go.
Speaker 3: So let me ask you something that where do we
Speaker 3: reconcile this idea with In Acts twenty, Paul is calling
Speaker 3: for the Ephesian elders right to him.
Speaker 2: This is before he goes.
Speaker 3: To Jerusalem, and you know he's got his trial ahead
Speaker 3: of him. The Efesian elders know that this is the
Speaker 3: last time they're going to be with their beloved Paul,
Speaker 3: and he tells them in his short time. There is
Speaker 3: the account that Luke gives us. He tells them, I
Speaker 3: am innocent of the blood of all because I did
Speaker 3: not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
Speaker 3: Right that, by implication would mean that there is such
Speaker 3: a thing as a half council or a quarter council.
Speaker 3: What are you saying when? What are you thinking of?
Speaker 3: When Paul's talking about the whole council? Where's the danger
Speaker 3: of delivering a half council?
Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It does, But we have I know this passage well.
Speaker 1: In fact, I read it last week. I just finished
Speaker 1: the book I Acts a couple of days ago. It
Speaker 1: just happened to be in my reading. And boy, isn't
Speaker 1: it Isn't that the case if you're concern and you're
Speaker 1: reading through scripture, it just so happens that something you
Speaker 1: just read pops up as an issue and need to
Speaker 1: be described. Okay, And I I think that Paul is
Speaker 1: not talking there about a culpability before God with regards
Speaker 1: to this stuff, like if I don't share my whatever
Speaker 1: with certain people, then I am going to be guilty
Speaker 1: before God. And so it's either guilt or innocence. I
Speaker 1: shared everything, so I'm not guilty before God. I think
Speaker 1: I think that what's going on there.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I recoonize we're talking about two different things.
Speaker 3: When we're talking about we just got through talking about
Speaker 3: the judgment of God. This is we're not talking about
Speaker 3: the same the same subject. So I'll just I'll say
Speaker 3: that here, Okay.
Speaker 1: I think that yeah, fair enough, Okay, as long as
Speaker 1: that that's the distinction is made. Some people might read
Speaker 1: that and say, well, okay, now I'm guilty if I correct,
Speaker 1: and I am culpable before God. Now. But I think
Speaker 1: if you remember the history with the Aphesians, he spent
Speaker 1: two years in Ephesus. That's one of the reasons those
Speaker 1: relationships are so strong. And when they're they meet at
Speaker 1: the beach and he says, I'm not going to see anymore,
Speaker 1: and boy, they are really anguished about it. But he
Speaker 1: says the time will come when vicious wolves will ravage
Speaker 1: the flock. And what he's saying is, before you, I
Speaker 1: have told you everything you need to know. I have
Speaker 1: given you the full council of God. Now that isn't true.
Speaker 1: And a whole bunch of other cities he went to.
Speaker 1: He didn't have time to do that. But with the Ephesians.
Speaker 1: He did. He spent about two years in the school
Speaker 1: of Haranus or whatever he said there and had a
Speaker 1: long time with them, working with them. It is a
Speaker 1: very spiritually mature group of Christians, and so I think
Speaker 1: that statement applies to that group. I've done what was
Speaker 1: necessary to protect you. I can't be called to account
Speaker 1: for not having given this to you. But as it
Speaker 1: turns out, there are lots of other places he didn't
Speaker 1: spend much time in at all, and he had to
Speaker 1: send Timothy and Titus at other times to choose elders
Speaker 1: for those fledgling flocks. He didn't have time to do
Speaker 1: the whole council of God. So I think that this
Speaker 1: responsibility to give the full counsel of God is a
Speaker 1: long term goal that we ought to have as Christian
Speaker 1: workers and leaders, if you will. Pastors, however, to keep
Speaker 1: communicating to various groups all the things that are important,
Speaker 1: and some people you get a lot more time with.
Speaker 1: So I have my own team, I call it. I
Speaker 1: have twenty people on my staff. Nineteen and four others
Speaker 1: of them or five one, two, three four five others
Speaker 1: right now are content providers. I have spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time with them personally out to dinner at events.
Speaker 1: We do regular interactive things online now because we can
Speaker 1: do this kind of thing a lot more access, even
Speaker 1: though they're spread out now around the country. And I
Speaker 1: could say, in some cases it's been twenty years or
Speaker 1: nineteen years or fifteen years or whatever. This this group,
Speaker 1: I call them my young guns. I'm the old gun.
Speaker 1: And I can say to them, I gave you the
Speaker 1: full counsel of God because I had the opportunity to
Speaker 1: do so, and I was intentionally investing myself in lots
Speaker 1: of different ways into their lives all right.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I couldn't say that about you, Granger. You know, I
Speaker 1: know you listen to some of the things that standard
Speaker 1: reason to read the book. I've offered you something, and
Speaker 1: it's true with a lot of people. But those guys,
Speaker 1: my young guns, are capable now of protecting the flock
Speaker 1: that is is in their charge, Amen giving them the
Speaker 1: whole counsul. So I think that's it's not so much
Speaker 1: he's saying I'm innocent before God. I think he's saying
Speaker 1: with you guys, I'm innocent before you guys.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I read it's the same.
Speaker 3: I think you're absolutely right and the what ends up
Speaker 3: happening in ephesis is that wolves do come, and and
Speaker 3: not only from the outside, from the inside.
Speaker 2: Is the the scary part.
Speaker 3: And what a what a comfort to know that you
Speaker 3: are You are a minister that is so diligent in this,
Speaker 3: not only in your team and your your ministry and
Speaker 3: your equipping, but also in your personal devotion. You just
Speaker 3: mentioned you finished Acts a few days ago. It wouldn't hard,
Speaker 3: it wouldn't be hard to understand that you've gone through
Speaker 3: Acts hundreds and hundreds of times.
Speaker 1: In your in your life.
Speaker 3: But but but it's still it's still not enough. You
Speaker 3: will do that continually till you have.
Speaker 1: Well, let me say something about that because this might
Speaker 1: be helpful to viewers, and that is I have people
Speaker 1: ask me about techniques of Bible study, techniques of prayer.
Speaker 1: I know about Bible study. That I do about prayer.
Speaker 1: Prayers almost a complete mystery to me. I do not
Speaker 1: understand what might be called the calculus of prayer. And
Speaker 1: Lewis made a point, look at you're not dealing with
Speaker 1: a machine. You're dealing with a person, and so persons
Speaker 1: can say yes, no, maybe, so whatever you know, so
Speaker 1: you can't really maybe calculus isn't the right word to
Speaker 1: use in a very precise sense, but generally speaking, Gee,
Speaker 1: how many prayers do you have to pray? How do
Speaker 1: you pray? This is hard for me, and I have
Speaker 1: books on prayer that are helpful, but I came down
Speaker 1: to this one simple thing. Okay, here's the first rule
Speaker 1: of prayer, s granger, pray, the first rule of prayers.
Speaker 2: Pray.
Speaker 1: You learn how to pray by praying. And if you
Speaker 1: don't understand anything else, and you can't forget, how I
Speaker 1: just pray? You have not because you ask not knock, seek,
Speaker 1: not ask, seek knock. You know kind of thing, stay
Speaker 1: at it. Just keep doing it even if you're confused.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: And the first rule of Bible is to read. You know,
Speaker 1: you can get all kinds of commentaries and get all
Speaker 1: this set up and have all these systems, but lots
Speaker 1: of times you don't time for the systems. You still
Speaker 1: have time to read. Look, here's there's some things you
Speaker 1: cannot do tomorrow. You cannot pray today's prayer tomorrow. You
Speaker 1: can only pray tomorrow's prayers tomorrow. You cannot read today's
Speaker 1: Bible tomorrow. That's tomorrow's Bible. You can only read today's
Speaker 1: Bible today. Now sometimes you miss it. You know, I'm traveling,
Speaker 1: I get up and the you know, I get that.
Speaker 1: But I do have a commitment though I've read through
Speaker 1: the Bible a number of times over the up until
Speaker 1: that's about twenty four twenty five years as a Christian.
Speaker 1: But I camped a lot in passages that I like
Speaker 1: the best. I like Proverbs, I like the New Testament.
Speaker 1: And then I was challenged by Jay Warner Wallace. He
Speaker 1: was doing an event for us, and he was using
Speaker 1: his cold case illustrations. But basically he says, you ought
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning and read to the end,
Speaker 1: and when you're done, start at the beginning and read
Speaker 1: to the end. And when you're done, start at the
Speaker 1: beginning and read to the end and never stop your
Speaker 1: whole life. And so the way, And I've explained this
Speaker 1: to my own listeners. How I just have it's over
Speaker 1: there in my Bible, which you can't read from here.
Speaker 1: But I have a Bible in a year kind of
Speaker 1: thing when you check off the chapters and stuff, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it's two or three chapters and only read one chapter.
Speaker 1: So I just make a notation there. But my goal
Speaker 1: is to work through that whole thing, and I don't
Speaker 1: care about the year part takes me three to four years.
Speaker 1: What I care about is continuing to read through the
Speaker 1: material so that I read the whole thing, and then
Speaker 1: I get a new thing I printed out, I start
Speaker 1: all over. And what this ensures, and this goes back
Speaker 1: to your comment about the Ephesian elders, it ensures that
Speaker 1: I am exposed to the full council of God. And
Speaker 1: it's nothing tricky, nothing fancy, no pressure. You know, if
Speaker 1: I don't read three chapters, I mean, some people do
Speaker 1: a Bible in the year and by February they're done
Speaker 1: because they're too far behind and they can't catch up. Well,
Speaker 1: don't worry about the year part. Just keep reading at
Speaker 1: your own pace. Make it a regular Usually it's a
Speaker 1: chapter a day for me. And if I don't do
Speaker 1: it in the morning because I'm traveling whatever, Usually when
Speaker 1: I go to bed at night, before I turn in,
Speaker 1: I'm reading something. I'll read a psalm, I'll read a
Speaker 1: pop I'm working through the psalms and proverbs in my
Speaker 1: own home. When I'm on the road, I might look
Speaker 1: something else up and read a little section, but I
Speaker 1: just want that all just getting into me, even if
Speaker 1: I'm not particularly reflective on it, and there is a
Speaker 1: sense of the more you do this well, John MacArthur
Speaker 1: said long ago, you want to read the Bible so
Speaker 1: much that your blood is bibi. I thought that was
Speaker 1: pretty clever.
Speaker 2: I think that was very clever.
Speaker 1: So what this represents for me, you know, I'm busy
Speaker 1: and everybody's busy, right is we find a way we're
Speaker 1: not too busy to eat. Yea, we find a way
Speaker 1: to you know, bolt something, sit down, maybe have a
Speaker 1: longer bial a lot of time, quicker or whatever. I've
Speaker 1: got some protein drink in the back I got to
Speaker 1: grab before this is over.
Speaker 2: But the.
Speaker 1: The same thing is true with our spiritual nourishment. It
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be complicated. We have to have a
Speaker 1: banquet every time we sit down. Just keep eating a
Speaker 1: little here, a little there, a little here, a little there,
Speaker 1: and keep praying, keep eating with feeding, with the word
Speaker 1: and praying.
Speaker 3: And to that analogy, if man can't live on bread alone,
Speaker 3: but from every word that comes mouth, goba, I don't
Speaker 3: think we should skip. If we don't skip a meal,
Speaker 3: we probably shouldn't skip that feast either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I try to regulate or taylor my own
Speaker 1: consistent feeding to troublesome schedules. But I don't say, okay,
Speaker 1: next week, next month. You know. It's like, by the
Speaker 1: way we're working out, you can't do today's work out tomorrow.
Speaker 1: That's right, do it today. Tomorrow's workout has his own.
Speaker 1: So anyway, maybe that's helpful.
Speaker 3: That's very helpful, And you've been so gracious with your time.
Speaker 3: I would be remiss if I didn't ask you, if
Speaker 3: you maybe I should say it this way. I'm probably
Speaker 3: the last generation that watched the show Colombo. Did you
Speaker 3: watch an Yeah? Okay, okay. So my producer sitting in here,
Speaker 3: he says he doesn't know Colombo. Yeah, okay, he knows it,
Speaker 3: but he didn't watch it. So explain to us Colombo
Speaker 3: and how this relates to any of this.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, now we're zooming into the area that
Speaker 1: the book covers, and it has to do with evangelism
Speaker 1: and how do we traffic in evangelism successfully in a
Speaker 1: culture that's largely really mad at Christians who are genuine
Speaker 1: followers of Jesus an important qualifier. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know this stranger but something like sixty five percent
Speaker 1: of the people in this country self identify as Christians.
Speaker 1: Now you know that is I mean, in theological terms,
Speaker 1: that's nonsense. I'm not putting down their own thoughts or
Speaker 1: beliefs about themselves. I'm just saying Christianity is something very particular.
Speaker 1: And if you are a follower of Jesus, remember the
Speaker 1: Christians were the disciples, were first called Christians and Antioch.
Speaker 1: That means Christians are disciples, at least that's the original sense.
Speaker 1: Followers of jeswis discipline, followers of Jesus. That means there's
Speaker 1: a certain set of things, they believe in a certain way,
Speaker 1: they act to be faithful to crist And so the
Speaker 1: world doesn't care about all those other Christians. They care
Speaker 1: about those ones that say the same thing about the
Speaker 1: nature of reality that Jesus himself said. So that's different,
Speaker 1: and that's offensive. I mean, Jesus got himself killed for
Speaker 1: good to sake. He wasn't just this wonderful guy that
Speaker 1: everybody thought was wonderful. That happened for about a year
Speaker 1: and a half, maybe two years into his ministry. But
Speaker 1: after that Bread of life dies, of course, John three,
Speaker 1: he was on his own. Man, they cut him loose
Speaker 1: and they were mad at him. So how do we navigate?
Speaker 1: And over the years I, as I reflected on it,
Speaker 1: I had developed certain I don't know, maneuvers or techniques
Speaker 1: if you will, that made my job easier. But at
Speaker 1: the heart of it all and this expressed itself in
Speaker 1: what I call the game plan, a tactical game plan,
Speaker 1: was using questions to move forward.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Now, in my mind I was trying to think of
Speaker 1: a way to characterize this. It had a handle on it,
Speaker 1: so to speak, And I thought, Wow, Lieutenant Colombo of
Speaker 1: TV fame. Now TV is like a thing of a
Speaker 1: bygone era. Now you got cable, you got podcasts, you
Speaker 1: got you didn't have to have a TV. You can
Speaker 1: get your computer and watch all kinds of stuff. But
Speaker 1: TV was the place where everybody congregated, the family did
Speaker 1: and watch these programs, you know. And there were individual
Speaker 1: individuals that overtime took iconic status, memorable people like Lucy
Speaker 1: from I Love Loosely, for example. But it turns out
Speaker 1: Lucy is the number two most recognized TV icond of
Speaker 1: all time. Lieutenant Columbus number one. And he's a guy
Speaker 1: that it was a murder mystery, and he'd come in
Speaker 1: and to the murder scene. He's wearing old trench coat.
Speaker 1: He's got a scraggly old cigar that he's smoking, and
Speaker 1: he's got a pad of paper, but it didn't have
Speaker 1: a pen because he didn't bring one. He's got a
Speaker 1: bum a pencil off of somebody, you know, and he's
Speaker 1: scratching his head and mutter and looking around. And this
Speaker 1: guy looks stupid, but he's stupid like a fox because
Speaker 1: he's got a plan. And at some point he'll, you know,
Speaker 1: scratch has had like his deep and painful thought. And
Speaker 1: then they'll say, I don't know. There's something about this
Speaker 1: thing that bothers me. He wanted to ask you a question,
Speaker 1: so my Columbu imitation, and so he asked the question.
Speaker 1: It works a lot better with the cigar, and that's
Speaker 1: right you from the stage. But in any event, but
Speaker 1: he asked the question, he gets information. You're very intelligent.
Speaker 1: One more thing, you know, any one more kings them
Speaker 1: to death. Question after question after question after question, and
Speaker 1: he says, look, I can't help it. It's a habit.
Speaker 1: And this is a habit Christians ought to get into.
Speaker 1: If you learn to navigate with questions. There are all
Speaker 1: kinds of advantages to that. For one, they're polite. You know,
Speaker 1: you know you ask questions of other people. I was
Speaker 1: asking earlier about your own career and navigating that. Of
Speaker 1: course you're asking me questions, that's your job situation. But
Speaker 1: I want to find out about you and that you
Speaker 1: probably felt good about that, so that's nice. Not only that,
Speaker 1: when we ask questions, we're getting information. So now I
Speaker 1: got a lot more information about you. Now that was
Speaker 1: just a curiosity. It wasn't like I'm trying to lead
Speaker 1: you to some spiritual end at that point. But a
Speaker 1: lot of times the information we get will help us
Speaker 1: to know where to go next. All right, we get
Speaker 1: you're getting intel. Another thing is and this is and
Speaker 1: this is really critical. Questions keep you safe. Questions keep
Speaker 1: you safe. You realize when you're asking questions, you're not
Speaker 1: giving your own view, and so your own view can't
Speaker 1: be attacked. When people Christians might start making say, well
Speaker 1: the Bible's word of God? Really, who says who? Oh,
Speaker 1: now it's back in the Christian Maybe the Christian has
Speaker 1: an answer to that. But notice how the statement, which
Speaker 1: was a claim kind of in the face of thetic
Speaker 1: that was going to get a response. Okay, put up
Speaker 1: or shut up. Okay, But if you don't say, if
Speaker 1: you don't make a claim, if you want to talk
Speaker 1: about the Bible and say so, what's your view of
Speaker 1: the Bible, you're not making any claims about it. You're
Speaker 1: asking for their claims. So in principle, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who are vulnerable. Now we're not going to take a
Speaker 1: listed advantage of that, but we're getting information from them.
Speaker 1: So questions keep you safe. And now here's the third thing,
Speaker 1: fourth reason that questions are really valuable, and it's manifest
Speaker 1: right here in our conversation. In this conversation between you
Speaker 1: and me, Granger, I'm doing all the work. You're just
Speaker 1: sitting there asking me questions here and there. But the
Speaker 1: conversation is completely in your control because of the questions
Speaker 1: you ask in the driver's seat. And that's a critical
Speaker 1: quality of questions, because when you're asking questions, you're in
Speaker 1: the driver's yat of the conversation. That is, your questions
Speaker 1: will direct that conversation wherever you want it to go. Now,
Speaker 1: if you hit a dead end, you could just start
Speaker 1: David in the interview, you say, let me go this way.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask this question. Now, now we understand that's
Speaker 1: the nature of the interviews like this, But at the
Speaker 1: same time, the same dynamic is in play when we
Speaker 1: are in conversations with other people. I think Christians are
Speaker 1: nervous about having conversations about Jesus. Now, I didn't say
Speaker 1: faith conversations. I don't like that phrase because the word
Speaker 1: faith is so corrupted for any good use. People think
Speaker 1: blind faith and leap of faith. So in your conversations
Speaker 1: about Jesus, it's no I forgot the direction I was
Speaker 1: going to go with that particular point. When you're having discussions,
Speaker 1: you want to find out as much as you can
Speaker 1: about the other person's point of view. All right, you're
Speaker 1: going to do that by asking questions. Because oh and
Speaker 1: by the way, that's was the thought. Christians are sitting
Speaker 1: on the bench instead of having those conversations because they
Speaker 1: don't want to get stuck. They don't want to get
Speaker 1: challenged in a way. They don't know how to respond.
Speaker 1: It's embarrassing, it's awkward, and as far as they're concerned,
Speaker 1: they might be thinking, well, it's just going to hurt
Speaker 1: the gospel, it won't help. But if your commitment is
Speaker 1: to using questions in a productive way, and that's what
Speaker 1: the Tactics book teaches, among a whole lot of other things.
Speaker 1: But the core of the first section is the game plan,
Speaker 1: which I call Colombo after the infamous Lieutenant Columbo. If
Speaker 1: you use those, you're going to find that you can
Speaker 1: navigate very safely and very productively in conversations, even if
Speaker 1: you're not very clever. I promise when I just liked
Speaker 1: this last weekend and I was in Franklin, just south
Speaker 1: of you're very familiar, so and I said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to give you a game plan in the next twenty
Speaker 1: minutes after I did my preliminary stuff that is going
Speaker 1: to allow you to converse with confidence in any situation,
Speaker 1: no matter how little you know or how knowledgeable or
Speaker 1: aggressive or even obnoxious the other person happens to be.
Speaker 1: So that's my promise. And in that case, I'm only
Speaker 1: giving the first two steps of the three step game plan.
Speaker 1: The third step is more advanced, but the first step
Speaker 1: is simple. And when you start employing even those two
Speaker 1: steps as a total novice in the not only in
Speaker 1: the use of the game plan, but as a novice,
Speaker 1: as a Christian, You're going to be amazed at how
Speaker 1: how much easier your conversations are going to be, how
Speaker 1: much safer you're going to feel, and amazingly, how much
Speaker 1: you can accomplish in people's lives. I have a book
Speaker 1: to the tactics and book and that's I think I
Speaker 1: have it here. Yeah, it's and it's a sequel. So
Speaker 1: it really capitalizes on the third step of the game plan,
Speaker 1: which is using questions to make a point. And here's
Speaker 1: that book. It's called The Streets of Arts.
Speaker 2: There we go.
Speaker 1: That's great to get it right there, it's called the
Speaker 1: subtitle using questions to answer Christianity stuff has challenges. How
Speaker 1: do you use a question to answer a challenge?
Speaker 2: Which is what Jesus did many times.
Speaker 1: Many times, exactly right. There's over two hundred times he
Speaker 1: asked questions in the gospels. So, but in here, I
Speaker 1: have an anecdote, and I from a gal who called
Speaker 1: the radio show, so I had a recording of it.
Speaker 1: I got it all right, she said, the very first
Speaker 1: time I used the tactical approach is what happened. It
Speaker 1: was amazing, she said, Oh, what the heck, I'll just
Speaker 1: try it. She was in a bookstore looking for a
Speaker 1: Christian book, and she was asking one of the you know,
Speaker 1: the people who worked at the store to help her
Speaker 1: find the book. And then she started using the tactical
Speaker 1: approach and using some of the initial questions. It's a
Speaker 1: great account in there about how God used that. I
Speaker 1: also have in the Street Smarts book. I talk about
Speaker 1: this waitress, this waitress in Seattle that you know I.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this, but most people don't.
Speaker 1: I'm not a morning person and so you know, I
Speaker 1: take a long time to get rolling. And I got
Speaker 1: my before my first cup of coffee. I'm an atheist,
Speaker 1: you know, so one of those kinds of things. So anyway,
Speaker 1: this I did a Friday night of it all day
Speaker 1: Saturday in Seattle. I'm rolling out my robber bag. On
Speaker 1: Sunday morning at or dark thirty, I got to go
Speaker 1: to a church and preach at two services. I'm beat up,
Speaker 1: I'm tired, but I'm still trying to wake up. And
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about Jesus. I don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about God. I don't want to talk leave
Speaker 1: me alone. I just want my coffee.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this guy comes up to me.
Speaker 1: She's way too animated for me that morning. This the waitress,
Speaker 1: Oh God, go away, I'm thinking. Then she says, you know,
Speaker 1: what are you doing here at all? And I figured
Speaker 1: to get rid of her, and I say, well, I'm
Speaker 1: going to preach out a church. I figure off. She goes, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but she says, oh good, No, what's good about that?
Speaker 1: For her?
Speaker 2: To her right right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I said why, why is that good? Are you
Speaker 1: a Christian? I mean that's possible. She says, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not a Christian. And then she says I used to
Speaker 1: be a Christian, but I'm not anymore now. She says,
Speaker 1: the universe takes Caribby, and I'm thinking, huh. So I
Speaker 1: asked her, I said, how could the universe take care
Speaker 1: of you? I'm confused about that. Now, For people who
Speaker 1: don't know the tactical game plan, the very first step
Speaker 1: is asking the question what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1: Or some variation? All right. Now, Remember I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to witness. But she says this thing, and I don't understand.
Speaker 1: So I'm saying, like, what do you mean? And she said, no,
Speaker 1: the universe is not a person. I said, well, how
Speaker 1: can it take care of you. She said, oh, well
Speaker 1: maybe God takes careby Oh okay, well that makes sense.
Speaker 1: And then she says God is the sure and I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: what does that mean? So I asked her about that.
Speaker 1: I'm friendly, sure, you know, and she just kept going
Speaker 1: on with these kind of confused New agey kind of
Speaker 1: statements and I couldn't and finally she just gave up
Speaker 1: and left, and honest to goodness, as I was sitting there,
Speaker 1: I was thinking, in my mind, there's not a single
Speaker 1: thing that I said that had any impact on her whatsoever.
Speaker 1: She was into her own New Age world and she
Speaker 1: tried Christianity.
Speaker 2: She's done with that.
Speaker 1: Off she goes, you brought my breakfast, And when she
Speaker 1: brought the bill, here's what she said to me. She said,
Speaker 1: nobody has ever asked me questions about my view before.
Speaker 1: And it got me thinking. Now, if you read the book,
Speaker 1: you know this. My goal of asking these questions is
Speaker 1: not to lead people to Christ. That's the harvest. You
Speaker 1: got to have the gardening before you have the harvest.
Speaker 1: I just want a garden, and all I want to
Speaker 1: do is get them thinking. And she said that got
Speaker 1: me thinking. Now, my question is did I want to
Speaker 1: witness to this girl. No, I didn't want a witness.
Speaker 1: Leave me alone. So here, even against my will by
Speaker 1: in almost in a knee jerk way, with my inner
Speaker 1: Columbo coming out, responding to the crazy thing she's saying
Speaker 1: to me. God still used it. That's just the first step.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I've heard this from other people before. I
Speaker 1: tell that accountant, but that's in the Streets of March book,
Speaker 1: which goes into more detail. But well's there's lots of illustrations.
Speaker 3: Let's put legs on this conversation and kind of bring it,
Speaker 3: bring it full circle from the question now of are
Speaker 3: you telling me that if I don't.
Speaker 2: Believe the way you believe, I'm going to hell?
Speaker 3: Because now you would you would you would answer that
Speaker 3: with a question now?
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, so we're kind of in a role
Speaker 1: play right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Sure.
Speaker 1: Now I have the thing that I explained to you
Speaker 1: before firmly in my mind, but sometimes I may get
Speaker 1: to that in a different route. And so when you
Speaker 1: said that you're telling me, I said, let me Granger,
Speaker 1: let me ask you a question in a way that
Speaker 1: is kind of what I'm saying. But what is it
Speaker 1: you think that means all right, So I think people
Speaker 1: don't understand what's going on there, and so I'm tossing
Speaker 1: it back to you.
Speaker 2: So that's the first stay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a way of putting it.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by that first step?
Speaker 1: That's what do you mean? Well, yeah, it's just this
Speaker 1: is just that for I'm getting more clarification. Okay, But
Speaker 1: you asked that in a certain way because I think
Speaker 1: you have a certain understanding of what you think my
Speaker 1: view is. Even though I could say yes, strictly speaking
Speaker 1: to the question you asked, it's a distortion of my view.
Speaker 1: So I want to ask you, what is it you
Speaker 1: think my view is with regards to Jesus that I
Speaker 1: would say such a thing. And so now it's your turn.
Speaker 1: But notice I just I just deflected it. Now if
Speaker 1: this isn't for the purpose of merely deflecting the challenge, correct,
Speaker 1: it's to try to get to the heart of the matter.
Speaker 1: And and uh, And you might say, I have no
Speaker 1: idea why you'd say such a thing like that. It
Speaker 1: sounds really arrogant to me. Okay, it sounds like you're
Speaker 1: in and everybody else's out.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let's continue the role play.
Speaker 3: So I say, I think that you're completely arrogant and
Speaker 3: you're narrow minded.
Speaker 2: That's okay, that's what I think.
Speaker 1: So I might say, how well this is? This is
Speaker 1: probably what I wouldn't be what i'd say here, but
Speaker 1: I'll just give it a little tool. How would if
Speaker 1: I agreed with you that I was arrogant and I
Speaker 1: was narrow minded? Would that change the truth of the
Speaker 1: claim I'm making about Jesus.
Speaker 2: Let's stop. She didn't.
Speaker 1: I would say, yeah, Well, the answer there's no, obviously,
Speaker 1: because arrogant people can be right about things right narrow
Speaker 1: minded people. So that's a change of the subject. Okay,
Speaker 1: And I might use that under different circumstances. But then
Speaker 1: i'd ask, okay, Granger, Okay, this is all about Jesus
Speaker 1: and what he did. So here's the question I want
Speaker 1: to ask you. And maybe you don't have an answer,
Speaker 1: and that's okay, But what do you think Jesus came
Speaker 1: to do? As far as you understand.
Speaker 3: It, And he came to he was a good person,
Speaker 3: and he came to tell people good morals and how
Speaker 3: to live their life.
Speaker 1: Okay, well he did do that. There's no question at
Speaker 1: all about that he was a good person, he did
Speaker 1: say those things. Where did you get that idea?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: I just I hear other people, you know, Christians talking
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 1: So have you ever read Jesus.
Speaker 3: I know enough about Jesus to not need to read
Speaker 3: them seriously.
Speaker 1: Okay, well on this issue, just saying here, Granger, and
Speaker 1: we're still on this issue. This is a really important question.
Speaker 1: So if you're getting your information about Jesus on this
Speaker 1: really important question from a whole bunch of other people
Speaker 1: rather than straight from the horse's mouth, do you think
Speaker 1: there's a chance you might be misunderstanding Jesus.
Speaker 3: I think there might be a chance, But I think
Speaker 3: that the matter is I don't really see why God
Speaker 3: would use one religion above another, and so I find
Speaker 3: no need to really understand what Jesus is saying.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I definitely can understand how you would say
Speaker 1: that if it was just a matter of choosing a
Speaker 1: religious club. So let me try to make a parallel.
Speaker 1: What if what if you had a really bad pain
Speaker 1: in your abdomen and acute man, it's like, oh man,
Speaker 1: something's wrong, maybe it's appendicitis, And then I said, you
Speaker 1: need to a dentist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I say, wait, what makes you think that one
Speaker 1: person should care about one doctor over another doctor? Doctors
Speaker 1: or doctors, whatever, Just go to a doctor you like,
Speaker 1: a cheap one. Whatever. But you're going to say, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, Dennis does a different thing than what I need.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So I'm just giving you a parallel here, Granger, to
Speaker 1: help you to see that it's not so easy to say,
Speaker 1: how could God prefer one religion over another? If God's
Speaker 1: trying to accomplish something, then you have to look at
Speaker 1: what he's trying to accomplish and see if those different
Speaker 1: religions reflect that. By the way, I'm not sure about
Speaker 1: your own convictions, but a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: all religions are basically the same and they all kind
Speaker 1: of one way or another lead to God.
Speaker 2: That's what I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so Christians think that Jesus is the Messiah
Speaker 1: and Jews think that he's not. Now he either is
Speaker 1: or he isn't. How can they both be right on
Speaker 1: that really important factor?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good question. You know, Mohammed is claiming
Speaker 3: the same thing. So that's why I think all religions
Speaker 3: are just false man made ideas.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, well, now we're talking about something entirely different
Speaker 1: that their man made is because Mohammed, Christianity teaches that
Speaker 1: Jesus died and across and rose in the dead. Jews
Speaker 1: think that Jesus died and across, but he didn't rise
Speaker 1: from the dead. Mohammed taught that Jesus didn't rise from
Speaker 1: the dead because he didn't even die in across. Now,
Speaker 1: this whole idea of the death and resurrection of Christ,
Speaker 1: you know this just because you live in America and
Speaker 1: Easter is coming up, is a big deal to Christians.
Speaker 1: This central right. So everybody can't be right on this.
Speaker 1: How about this one. I'm just talking about one idea.
Speaker 1: Muslims and Christians and Jews think that God is personal,
Speaker 1: kind of like you and I are in a certain sense.
Speaker 1: You can talk to him, He does stuff. Now, Hindus
Speaker 1: think that God is not personal, he's kind of a
Speaker 1: force or something like that. Well, he's either personal or
Speaker 1: not personal if he exists. So if he's impersonal, the
Speaker 1: Hindus are right, and the Jews and Christians are wrong
Speaker 1: on God. And if he's personal, then they're right on God.
Speaker 1: And the Hindus are wrong, but they can all both
Speaker 1: be right, all right, So how is it that all
Speaker 1: of these religions are basically the same? And I'll get
Speaker 1: you to God when they don't even agree on what
Speaker 1: God's like. So I'm just going to a point you
Speaker 1: made a little bit earlier, that all religions are legitimate
Speaker 1: past the God. I'm just trying to get you to
Speaker 1: think about that, so that makes sense to you.
Speaker 3: I can understand here, mister Cochl that you are evidently
Speaker 3: you have some knowledge in this subject. And so I'm
Speaker 3: still kind of wrapping around to my first question. So
Speaker 3: why is it obviously somebody's right and somebody's wrong. You
Speaker 3: made a good point about that, okay, And why do
Speaker 3: you think you're right?
Speaker 2: How does that? How could you say you're right and
Speaker 2: I'm wrong?
Speaker 1: Simple answer? Jesus Jesus. And I don't mean Jesus in
Speaker 1: a book. I mean that Jesus in history, feet on
Speaker 1: the ground, all right, Jesus of Nazareth, all right, he's
Speaker 1: a guy who lived and died and then something strange
Speaker 1: happened because whom they put him in was empty three
Speaker 1: days later. And there's a whole bunch of people who
Speaker 1: said they saw him alive after he was dead, which
Speaker 1: is the basic definition of a resurrection. And then they
Speaker 1: in a certain sense of time that were willing to
Speaker 1: sign their testimony and blood. These people are all willing
Speaker 1: to die. Now, how could they be lying? Incidentally, the
Speaker 1: points I just made about Jesus lived and he died,
Speaker 1: and the tomb was empty, and these guys say they
Speaker 1: saw him. These are facts of history. When I say
Speaker 1: facts of history, I'm not just advancing my own opinion
Speaker 1: about this. These are the facts that virtually all historians
Speaker 1: of the era, no matter what their personal convictions acknowledge,
Speaker 1: are well attested by the historical evidence in the primary
Speaker 1: source documents that we possess. So I mean, they don't
Speaker 1: all think Jesus rose in the dead. But then we
Speaker 1: have to ask the question, what was the point of
Speaker 1: these guys saying he did if he didn't, if they
Speaker 1: didn't experience that, Because you know, lots of people die
Speaker 1: for a lie, but not if they know it's a lie.
Speaker 1: And I'll tell you the rule about lying, Granger, and
Speaker 1: every kid knows this, all right, tell a lie that
Speaker 1: gets you something good, You don't tell a lie that
Speaker 1: gets you whipped, beaten with rods, stoned, crucified up side down,
Speaker 1: or beheaded. This is not a good lie, no, but
Speaker 1: this is what these disciples who said they saw Jesus
Speaker 1: were willing to endure. Based on their confession of seeing Jesus.
Speaker 1: These guys weren't lying. That's so when I look at
Speaker 1: the options, and there I got Jesus, a very unique
Speaker 1: individual who I can establish some certain historical facts pretty clearly,
Speaker 1: and then I reason from those historical facts, what's the
Speaker 1: best explanation for the fact that Jesus was dead and
Speaker 1: then the tomb was empty, and then all these people
Speaker 1: were willing to on the pain of death. They didn't
Speaker 1: all die matery staffs, but lots of them did, and
Speaker 1: they all got persecuted. We're willing to say we saw
Speaker 1: this guy, we saw him after he rose from the dead,
Speaker 1: and we're communicating this message and what this resurrection seals.
Speaker 1: And maybe the goes to your point a little bit
Speaker 1: more clearly. And I made reference to this earlier before
Speaker 1: the role play. Actually, but in any event, one of Jesus'
Speaker 1: followers wrote this that the resurrection of Christ declared with
Speaker 1: power that he was the son of God. In other words,
Speaker 1: he was God come down. Now why did he come down?
Speaker 1: Because he cared enough about you and me, who are
Speaker 1: violators of God's law and are guilty. And I don't
Speaker 1: need to tell you that because you already know it
Speaker 1: all right. Everybody knows about themselves. And he was willing
Speaker 1: to take the punishment that is due us so that
Speaker 1: we could be forgiven. He's going to pay the penalty,
Speaker 1: He's going to take the wrap. And he did that,
Speaker 1: and then when he rose from the dead, that showed
Speaker 1: he accomplished what he was after. Now you have a choice.
Speaker 1: You can either go with Jesus or go it alone.
Speaker 1: By the way, Jesus means forgiveness and going it alone
Speaker 1: means just the opposite justice.
Speaker 2: I think I was just saved. I think this table
Speaker 2: was saved there.
Speaker 1: But let me just this is a great role play,
Speaker 1: and I appreciate you going there. And notice how when
Speaker 1: I explained how I responded to that question with the
Speaker 1: Jewish audience. I have this tough in my mind, but
Speaker 1: I kind of adapted it to our circumstance and I
Speaker 1: used lots of questions and then when it got to
Speaker 1: the point where I really needed to explain I used
Speaker 1: this illustrations that I hope would make sense, but there
Speaker 1: was not a word of Christian psycho babble. And that
Speaker 1: entire explanation true. And this is something that I think
Speaker 1: is really important in the Tactics book, as the Tactics says,
Speaker 1: watch your language. And that's what I'm talking about Christian psychobabble,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't communicate. It's just religious noise to most people,
Speaker 1: and I think the most Christians too.
Speaker 3: And so for people listening, can you give us a
Speaker 3: few of these words what I like to call Christian ease?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so what are some of these words? There's
Speaker 1: a whole category. Well, notice I didn't say saved. I
Speaker 1: didn't use the word faith. I didn't use the word believe.
Speaker 1: When I talked about my own if you will, my
Speaker 1: own the content of my faith. I talk about my convictions.
Speaker 1: If I were to say I'm impressing you or granger,
Speaker 1: I was going to challenge you. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: say receive Jesus as Lord and savior. I'm going to
Speaker 1: say I want you to trust Christ because he did
Speaker 1: something for you you don't want to have to do
Speaker 1: for yourself. He took the punishment. And then I want
Speaker 1: you to follow Jesus and never stop.
Speaker 2: It's great, it's so clear, practical.
Speaker 1: Lord and Savior. Now those terms mean something, but they
Speaker 1: don't mean anything to the other guy, and they're largely
Speaker 1: stale Christian religious phrases even to us. You know, I
Speaker 1: have this whole category of pastor speak. You can talk
Speaker 1: to a pastor, you know, at the grocery store, and
Speaker 1: he's going to talk a certain way the minute he
Speaker 1: gets up on the dayas at a Sunday services, he
Speaker 1: often pastors speak and he's saying all this, Amen, brothers, Amen, brothers,
Speaker 1: what a blessing, hallelujah, well, hallelujahs, praising God. But I
Speaker 1: mean all that other stuff. Why pastors say amen, amen, Amen,
Speaker 1: they're trying to get a rise out of the audience.
Speaker 1: Because what they're saying doesn't get a rise is out
Speaker 1: of the audience. So stop doing that. Just preach in
Speaker 1: a manner that affects the audience. Don't ask for an
Speaker 1: artificial applause. Well, on that.
Speaker 3: Note, let me ask you one more question. So back
Speaker 3: to the role play. So I say I want to
Speaker 3: know more about this kid. Could you pray for me?
Speaker 3: What would be the contents of your short prayer with
Speaker 3: everything we said.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, of course I might ask why would you
Speaker 1: want me to I'd be happy to pray for your grature,
Speaker 1: but why do you want me to pray? And if
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer to that, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to pray properly? Okay, So I mean I might
Speaker 1: say that, or I might just jump into it. I
Speaker 1: use that as an illustration. This is another step of colombo.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? What's going on there?
Speaker 1: Help me out? Notice how it's interactive, and every step
Speaker 1: that I can get more information from you. I want
Speaker 1: to do that because it keeps you involved and it
Speaker 1: helps me understand you better. But I might say, Father,
Speaker 1: let me say, well, okay, i'll make this comment after
Speaker 1: the father. I'm praying for a granger right now, and
Speaker 1: I'm so glad that you gave us an opportunity to
Speaker 1: have this conversation. And I know there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things he's confused about, and that's okay, it's the learning process.
Speaker 1: But I pray that the things that I shared with
Speaker 1: him today will find a place in his heart, that
Speaker 1: you will take these things that I've said and open
Speaker 1: his understanding to them so that he can benefit from
Speaker 1: your wonderful mercy and be rescued by the Lord Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: who is his only hope. So be it.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful, that's beautiful, So be it.
Speaker 3: Thanks, And I'm not I'm not going to say amen
Speaker 3: anymore because you called me, so be it.
Speaker 1: I'll occasionally look at when you say amen from the
Speaker 1: people know you're finished. It's a way of saying that.
Speaker 1: But but I don't ever say almost ever saying Jesus
Speaker 1: name amen, because praying in Jesus name doesn't mean saying
Speaker 1: in Jesus name. There's not a prayer in the New
Speaker 1: Testament that ever ends that way, and there's lots of
Speaker 1: prayers there. True, you know, it means the awareness that
Speaker 1: we go before the Father because Jesus has given us access,
Speaker 1: we're going in his name. As long as we have
Speaker 1: that awareness, we're fine. So I don't I just usually
Speaker 1: leave that behind, you know. And now I'm from the sixties,
Speaker 1: so instead of saying aimn, sometimes I might say right on,
Speaker 1: right on, Well, you.
Speaker 3: Have been so gracious with your time, and I appreciate
Speaker 3: you so much. I could probably listen for a couple
Speaker 3: more hours, just to listen to you talk.
Speaker 1: So I get talk for a couple of borrowers. Maybe
Speaker 1: we can do this another time.
Speaker 3: I wish I could be on Kirk Cameron's level where
Speaker 3: I could just send you birthday cards every year.
Speaker 2: But maybe I'll give to someow.
Speaker 1: He is a sweetheart. I don't get that for everybody.
Speaker 1: I don't even get that for my family, my old girls.
Speaker 1: But he hasn't done.
Speaker 2: That for a while.
Speaker 1: But it was just something he did and just just
Speaker 1: to encourage me as a brother, you know. And anyway,
Speaker 1: So I'm glad to have been here with you, Granger,
Speaker 1: and I am open to other conversations, so no worries.
Speaker 2: Excellent.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me on the Grangersmith podcast. I appreciate
Speaker 3: all of you guys. You could help me out by
Speaker 3: rating these podcasts on tunes. If you're on YouTube, subscribe
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Speaker 3: Yigi