Are Arguments for God's Existence a Waste of Time?

My concern was not the relationship. My concern was winning the argument. And because of that, I lost the relationship. I thought, I'm doing this wrong. We need the Frank Turek and others who are going to develop themselves in that area and be a voice to respond to the big questions. God did not call us to make dumb people smart. God uses us as conduits to take spiritually dead people and make them alive. I think the biggest danger in this subject is when we are listening to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. What's up everyone? Welcome to the Provoke and Inspire podcast. Learning how to follow Jesus in a post-Christian world. I got David with me, my dad, I got Luke Greenwood. All three of us here together. What's up fellas? Good to see you, Ben. I'm ready. Ben, whatever it is you want to do, I'm here for you, man. So, fellas, here's what I got for us today. Here's a conversation that has been brewing in my mind. I sent it to you guys. We should all be prepared and ready. And essentially, it's this. Look, as followers of Jesus, we are called to make disciples, right? That is what we are called to do. That is the Great Commission. And I think as we attempt to do that in our own lives as a mission, but then also just everybody listening in their own context, we obviously have to ask the question, are the things we're doing actually effective? Are we being fruitful in our attempts to make disciples? Because as I've been reflecting on it, what I want to do is I want to focus on one thing that I think we put a lot of energy and time into that I think is limited in its ability to be effective. And then I want to highlight something that has kind of come to mind through a Facebook video and this viral influencer online, because I think what this guy is doing is modeling something that I think followers of Jesus should be harnessing. And frankly, I think you see in the life of Jesus. So I'm going to talk about something that I don't think is really working. And then I want to bring to the conversation something I think we all should focus on. So let me just set this up. We live in a time where or I would say a culture and a context where being rational, having the right knowledge, having the right answers is very, very important. And of course, there are historical and philosophical reasons for that. We live in this enlightenment industrialization. Everything is about the mind and reason and the scientific method. And there are nerdy reasons for all of that that we don't need to get into on this podcast. But the point is, for those who live in the West, certainly Western Europe, North America, Australasia, this is kind of the air that you breathe, that everything is very scientific, everything is very rational. And of course, when this is our culture, it affects our faith. It becomes one of the patterns of the world that we have to be at least aware of and in many cases guard against, because it can impact the way we do faith. And there are parts of our faith that that are intellectual. I just had a conversation with doctor Frank Turek, and he's devoted his life to going onto college campuses and to answering objections to the evidence of God's existence. And he's done this very effectively in a lot of lives have been dramatically impacted by this. I think, of John Lennox and William Lane Craig and Lee Strobel, all of these amazing apologists that God has used in very powerful and profound ways. And a lot of their rise, I think, certainly in popular mainstream culture, is because of a rise before them, which was the New Atheists. There was this intellectual movement because it was very much popularized on YouTube and the internet, where you had these guys, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. These guys were coming out and making these very caustic, dramatic arguments against the existence of God, calling God evil, calling religion a poison and a cancer, something that needed to be dealt with. And so you have in sort of post nine over eleven, these voices becoming mainstream and very popular. And then I think you have this counter-reaction where you have all these Christian voices coming out and trying to offer a rational defense. And so you have this play on the internet where you have like William Lane Craig dunks on Richard Dawkins and blah blah, blah, back and forth where we have these, this whole genre develop. And I think there is a case to be made that there's value in it to some degree, even in our more modern times. You know, you have Wes Huff, who, you know, continues to make the rounds, this biblical Canadian biblical scholar who looks at manuscripts and, you know, he's been on Joe Rogan and he's been on all the biggest podcasts, of course, Jordan Peterson and even Joe Rogan himself, who have really made the faith rationally credible, I guess, is the word that I would describe or the phrase that I would use. And yet my feeling is there are limits to this. There are limits to the use of rationality and argumentation and knowledge in our faith. And so I guess I want to ask you guys, now that I've talked for way too long, what do you think of this whole idea of using reason to defend the faith? Is this something that we should be celebrating? Are there limits to it, or can it even be counterproductive when it comes to our primary call of making disciples? All right, that's it. I'm done. In the late seventies, I went to La Brea in Switzerland, where Francis Schaeffer was. So I was able to spend time with him, and he actually invited me to a chalet for dinner. No one's ever invited me to a chalet. Not even once. That's pretty cool, I know. Can you believe it? You guys would never be invited to a chalet. Luc probably calls it a shallot. What's a shallot? Chalet. Yeah. Anyway, so the point is, at that time, I don't know what La Brea is like today, but at that time, it was where all kinds of people who had lots of questions, primarily people who were outside of the church, would come and then they would have these conversations. And it was amazing. He was a big influence on a lot of people. Also, a Also, a lot of Christians would go there because they want it to be like Francis Schaeffer. You know, he wore these knickers. For a British person, that sounds really weird. Yeah, it's really not making me feel very comfortable. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, he would go around. Are we all wearing knickers? Those Swiss leather pants, you know, Swiss leather pants that come to your knees and then you wear these long socks he was trying to be. What are those? Sensitive. What do you call those leather pants SLPs? Nobody but the Swiss don't even do that. It's like cultural adaptation taken too far. Well, no. But. So then all these guys would go there from these, like, seminaries and they'd pull their socks over their pants. Mhm. I'm not kidding. They did. Seriously? Yeah. I never heard that before. That's interesting. Yeah. So they would pull their socks over their pants but. Well so the whole thing was about having intellectual debates. You know apologetics was the thing. You know, I had studied philosophy in university, and so I wanted to fit in with all these guys that were trying to be apologists and all that. And I can remember getting into an argument with someone there about how can we believe that God exists or whatever, which is quite ironic to say when you're in the Swiss Alps. You know, it's like so amazingly beautiful. And so I won the argument, but I lost him. I mean, our friendship was over because the whole thing, he thought was, well, if I just studied the subject more, you wouldn't win the argument. My concern was not the relationship. My concern was winning the argument. And because of that, I lost the relationship. I thought, I'm doing this wrong because Francis Schaeffer was this brilliant apologist, but he also was super humble, and he treated everyone with respect. And he was very relational. And he, you know, he'd say, if you speak the truth to people, you do it with tears in your eyes. Yeah, I've had different phases because there's been phases for me where it was really important to dig deeper into apologetics, and to read books on a topic that helped me think through my faith and respond to stuff I was hearing around me. So in university. Um, for me, it was more questions, like existential questions that my friends were asking. It wasn't so much the scientific proof of the faith. You know, I was in an art university, so it was like a different mindset. It was like a secular worldview. And they were it was more like, you know, hey, believe whatever you want. That kind of what we say is predominant in global youth culture today. So I was at that time I'd read books that were really helpful for me to think through, how to respond, how to have good conversations with people, including, actually, Francis Schaeffer. He's a number of his books are really good for that kind of conversation. Um, and and yet I also found that there was real limitations to that. Like something that kept happening to me was I would think I was having really good, deep conversations that might lead a person to consider Jesus or think more deeply about God. But it didn't seem to go that way. And then I'd have some kind of amazing, very open conversation with someone that was triggered by something else completely, like, uh, a friend in university coming and saying, man, I'm really struggling right now with, um, depression. And I don't know what the answer to life is. And I heard that you pray. Could you pray for me or somebody saying, you know, I've lost a family member passed away, and I and I just would appreciate you to, to pray for me or something that was just really personal and more like a, a heart issue. And so I started to realize and notice that difference, that while reading certain books and going into the topics were helpful for me to try to feel secure in my faith and understand how I can respond to questions that people had about the faith. Really actually connecting with people ended up being often through other things And actually there's an there was an ultimate example for me once, um, at an NLM concert when I started touring with NLM, and I remembered having a conversation with a guy after the concert where for our audience who don't know, you know, NLM has always been about a very clear gospel proclamation at the end and and inviting people to respond and to give their lives to Jesus. And I talked to this guy after the concert, and I had this long apologetics debate about whether the church had value in society and all of these things. It went on for a while, and it was going nowhere. And I was about to give up on the conversation with the guy when he goes. But by the way, when you guys prayed at the end, I went forward and received prayer and I was like, wait, what? What? Why did we just have this long conversation about all these big questions when you've just experienced that? I said, well, why did you go forward? And he said, I just felt compelled to. I felt like it was really important. Yeah. And that hit me. That always stayed with me with like, and I don't know how you guys see this, but for me, I really don't want to, like, take away the value of good apologetics, good deep thinking, and giving value to people's questions that are more rational. But I just know through all those experiences that there's so much more to it than that. And that's kind of like a a supporting piece and not the main thing is that's how I see it anyway. Yeah. And again, it's a body of Christ thing, right? Because we are all wired differently. And so as a follower of Jesus, you may be wired in such a way where God has given you that kind of inquisitive mind and you want to know the answers to these deep questions. And there are counterparts of you in the real world who likewise need to know answers to those questions. I think it was C.S. Lewis who famously said he was sort of intellectually converted first, right? That he first had to believe that it made sense before he was willing to see it. And I think about quote, I've heard a lot about apologetics and it says apologetics are not the cross. They are the shears that remove the bushes that obscure the cross. And so this person, who is a brilliant apologist, was very clear about its intended purpose, which is that it is not the thing that saves you. It's the thing that just creates the clarity that allows someone to consider what's ultimately true and what really does save them. And I, I think you see this sentiment reinforced in Paul in first Corinthians two four when he says, my message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God's power. And so I agree with you, Luke. I'm not saying that there is no value in it. I just think we need to be careful to inflate the value of it, or to make it too central, and also to be on guard, I think, against the tendency for it to puff up and for it to, um, almost create a false sense of victory. Like if I just know the right things and if I just can say the right things and make you hear the right things, then somehow I've accomplished the goal. And as I've often said in churches, God did not call us to make dumb people smart. Right. God uses us as conduits to take spiritually dead people and make them alive. And I think that that is very, very important. There is a place it's a specialized tool. But as you said, I don't think it's the main tool in the belt. Yeah. There's like the danger in the the getting puffed up with winning an argument. There's also a culture right now that's really strong, the whole polarization and the whole debate and culture, which I think became a really predominant thing on social media when when it became a thing on social media, a hype on social media, the apologetic debates and, and a number of the names that are strong now, like there's, there's some of those guys that go into university campuses and have these strong live debates with students, which there's a whole side of that that's really valuable. But there's also become a culture of, oh, it's cool to win the battle and to win the argument. And that also, I think, creates a real issue. And interestingly, some of the really important figures like you mentioned, C.S. Lewis and then John Lennox, you could say is like the next C.S. Lewis, you know, so many people would see him that way, and he actually got to hear CSO speaking and had and was influenced by him. But they kind of to me are a whole different category of that, because in the C.S. Lewis did things and in the way John Lennox does that today, even though he's debated most of those names. You mentioned of the neo atheists before, when when that was the thing he's never been about, like getting into the whole culture of being in lots of debates and and winning the arguments. He's he's very kind of authentic in wanting to share the faith and wanting to address the complicated questions and understand the intellectual side as important. But he's not. I always feel like he doesn't want to enter that culture of debate and and and hype on social media around debate. Yeah. I think something you said, Luke, that I thought was really important was when you were talking to I think the guy at the end of the No Longer music show, and you said that, you know, why? Why did you pray, why did you go forward? And he said he just kind of felt he felt compelled. Compelled. Right. Yeah. And there's a book I read a while ago called The Righteous Mind by an author, Jonathan Haidt. He's the one who famously now has written The Anxious Generation, and he's gotten pretty popular, even though he's not a Christian. But he has some pretty interesting instincts, and this book is long and cumbersome, and you could literally just read the two paragraphs I've written in my notes and probably save yourself the effort. But his whole premise is that we are not as rational as we think we are, that we are very emotional. And he uses this illustration of an elephant and a rider, and the elephant is like the emotions that are are just kind of going wherever they want. And the rider is kind of on top trying to control these emotions. And really what the rider often is doing is rationally justifying what the elephant already feels. In other words, you'll feel something. And we all know this. You think about arguments you have, or you think about, um, people that you interact with. And often what they're doing is they're just trying to intellectually justify a deep, guttural emotion about something. They're hurt, and now they've got to find all these intellectual reasons. He describes it like a a lawyer who comes in after the fact and says, no, let me let me help you understand why I acted that way. It's because of X, Y, and Z. And I think the reason why this matters is because we are complicated people, and more often than not, our resistance to the gospel or the reasons why we respond to the gospel are much more deep and emotional and of course, spiritual supernatural than they are intellectual. And I think understanding that will help us appropriately use reason, because we realize sometimes we're arguing here, but we're not getting to the core of the issue, because the core of the issue is something much deeper and unseen than sort of the well, I don't know about the, you know, the dinosaurs. How can you explain the fossil record? Like there are people who care, but often, often it's something else going on. Right David. Mhm. Well I mean I, I can remember a conversation I had with, with someone um in a, in a bar and I was talking to them about trying to give this apologetical explanation of Jesus. And the guy goes, you're never going to convince me of this stuff. And I said, okay, cool. So let's talk about football. And so we talked about football and, uh, you know, and he'd kind of like try to talk about it a little bit. No, let's just talk about football. So we're talking about that. And then after a while he said, you know, I really kind of would like to know more about what you were saying in the beginning. And we had a really powerful conversation. Can't remember if he gave his life to Jesus, but after that he was very open. It was started from the I care about you. You know what I mean? Not I'm here to win an argument or convince you because I have a superior philosophy worldview, which we do. You know, I think there's there's no worldview that's makes more sense than, than Jesus. But when he saw I was just a normal guy, not a Jesus machine. And I actually didn't just want to win an argument but actually just talk to him, he kept wanting to go back to the original conversation because he saw my heart. Yeah. And it also shows how, um, people are very often curious or hungry to know more, even when on the surface they're using a question or even a doubt, like a disagreement, to to talk about the topic. But it doesn't necessarily mean that even if they say so that they don't want to have that conversation, they don't want to hear more. And you can only see that if you have that position you just described, David, of like, um, I care about this person. Even if they're wanting to argue with me or telling me that they don't care. I care enough about them where I'm gonna, you know, see, see where the conversation leads and give them time to to, you know, bring it up again and talk about it more. Yeah. So how does someone react to what we're saying. Right. Because I think we've tried to create a balanced perspective on this, that it's not of no use. But what does the average follower of Jesus need to even bother with this stuff? Is it something that if you just happen to be attracted to it, then go for it? Is it a showing respect for your audience? Um, to to actually know some of the answers to these tough questions, like how do we guide someone who's wrestling with this? I think when you when you find Jesus, you know, you come to him not because of rational argument. You come to him because you're touched by the Holy Spirit. You know, if we could just win it by rational argument, then we could just put the perfect argument together and everyone would come to Jesus. It's a spiritual thing. It's a it's a born again experience. It's supernatural. But I think that when we do come to Jesus, it's we should study apologetics, you know, maybe on at least a certain amount of apologetics so we can when the devil lies to us and says, oh, this is just a fairy tale that you're believing. You know, I've had thoughts like that. Is this really real? Is this just something I've kind of conjured up in my head? And then it's a comfort for me to know that, no, there's a lot of real scientific, intellectual reasons to support why I believe what I believe. There's so much evidence to support the fact that I believe that Jesus rose from the dead. And in things like that, it helps me when I'm in a storm, you know, I can look back and I go, I have a foundation, you know, that's why I need to, you know, it's another topic, but that's why I need to know God's Word for the same reason. Because if it's just based on supernatural encounter, then it's I don't have those foundations to help me when I don't feel close to God, or I am going through a hard time emotionally or spiritually. So yes, we need to know apologetics, but I don't know if it's the best way to go to someone outside of the church. You know, the global youth culture that God has called us to reach. I don't know if that's the starting point. Most of the time that's a really good point. And so for me, I was thinking when you were talking, how for me personally, I also have that those moments, I actually think it's healthy for my faith to, um, different moments, pause and reflect and think again about why I believe what I believe and why I'm doing what I'm doing. Because I think that's one way of keeping your faith alive and authentic. Like if you get into a place where you're just doing it because that's what you've always done and that's what everybody around you is doing, and you just kind of go with the with the program. That's dangerous. Like, for me, I need to every now and again stop and go. Why is it I follow Jesus? Why am I telling other people to follow Jesus? I want to dig into it again and be reminded. And so apologetics plays a role in that for our personal faith. And, uh, and then. Yeah, but I like what you just said at the end there, David, that maybe a key point is like, is that the first thing that we come at people with, maybe not maybe for some people that's a, that's a need, there's an area or that's an important thing for them. They have big questions that they want answered. That's that's true for some. But generally speaking, to come at people with that's our approach. Like, hey, I'm going to prove to you, you know, intellectually God's existence or whatever. For a lot of people today, that is probably, I think probably most people, that's not the main thing. Um, and I'm just going to also say to what you said before, Ben, I do think there is a gifting thing, like a calling thing around this, that we need some in the body of Christ in the church to be great at this. We need the Frank Turek and others who are gonna To develop themselves in that area and be a voice to respond to the big questions. So we need those guys. Um, and we need some of it in our own lives. But I do think we need a bigger picture, a more there's more to it. When we're really interested in engaging with people and seeing them meet Jesus. I would say to add to everything that you guys have said, I think the biggest danger in this subject is when we pursue this in isolation, when we pursue this as an intellectual endeavor, especially as it relates to how we are viewing outreach. Like, I agree with everything that you guys have said as it relates to strengthening my faith. And when you say outreach, you mean evangelistic. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Okay. As it relates to how we engage with those outside of the church, I would say we need to be very, very cautious to do this in isolation because I think where this goes wrong is when we are answering questions people aren't asking. And when we're we are we are filling our sort of, uh, of intellectual knowledge detached from real relationships and frankly, even detached from real interactions. Like we're not actually talking to people outside of the church. We're not actually engaging with those who believe differently. We're just getting really good at knowing all the answers. And occasionally we the outlet for that is like social media or something. So I would say that if you're wondering, like, what role should this play? I would say one, it should play the role you guys have described, which is for me, it's worship, truly. Like, I think I am one of those people that have been wired that way to, to a certain degree. And so for me to read these kinds of books and engage with these kinds of arguments is worship. And I love that. It makes me love God more. It makes me know him better and understand him more, and have a deeper awe and reverence for the fact that not only is he, you know, this relational being, but he's so rational. And he made this world and he designed it to work, and he's behind it all. That is worship for me. And yeah, by the way, it really strengthens me in days of doubt where I wonder with questions like everyone else, we all have to contend with questions like how can I make sense of you getting cancer, dad? How do I deal with that? How do I make sense of of these real trials in my life and doubts that will invariably come? How do I handle getting older? How do I handle conflict? How do I handle whatever or things that emerge in the news or culture that seems to, on some levels, refute God or his existence or whatever? So there's those things and for that reason alone, pursue it. But then I would say you need to attach your pursuit of apologetics to real person, in-person interactions. You need to have real conversations. And in fact, the horse that pulls the cart should be real conversations where you're listening and hearing. And what are you wrestling with? How is your spiritual life? What are your biggest doubts? And then from there, you go and find those answers, but not as sort of this academics in the void, but it becomes a real like you're bringing water to someone who's asking for it, who's really dry in this particular area. And so then it becomes real and personal and specific and I think powerful in that case. Um, we're in, uh, part of Minneapolis. It's very left on the political spectrum. I would say most are very anti-Christian, but we talked to someone here and they would fit that kind of profile. But just saying, how are you? You know, what's going on? Because they were going through a rough time, and we found out that someone in their family was going through a health crisis. And so we said, oh, wow, we're so sorry. You know, what can we do for you? And, you know, the person just broke down and just was so moved. And Jodie's hugging this person, you know, in this public space, whatever is very unusual. And now they're very open to Jesus. They want to know everything. But it was when we started to just relate to them in that way. I have so many examples like that. Yeah. There are a number of ministries that I know or even have grown up with that are in universities, and are often using apologetics as a key part of their ministry to like, have open lectures, public lectures, or or even sometimes debates about particular questions and topics in the universities. And so, like I have a friend from the UK, Michael Oates, and they do these mission weeks in universities all across Europe. And that's one of the key parts of their ministries is the apologetics thing. But the place where I've seen it work the most in in their ministry and other similar, is when the team on the ground has done a really good job of engaging with their friends at university, and they know people and they have relationships, and then they choose themes to talk about that come from that. And it just changes the way it's done. If you just come in with like the classic questions or themes. It's it's different to, um, there was one university in the UK that did this really well, and they were just, um, going into questions about loneliness or about, um, you know, the anxiety around social media or whatever was a was a real issue happening in the community of the students at the time. And then they would bring in a conversation around that or and that I think that's a good example of, um, you like having that as a support, having the apologetics piece as a support, but that what's driving it is what David was just talking about. It's, it's it's really caring about people's hearts and listening and, and engaging with them. So I feel like so for instance, in our mission in Steiger and in our so in our Steiger Mission school, we try to always have something of apologetics in there. So there's there will be, you know, a lesson about, um, thinking about the hard questions that you might get asked when you go out on the streets to meet people. Yeah. Global youth culture, apologetics. Yeah. And even there's we have our guys from Lebanon come and talk about Muslim apologetics. Right. Like, if you meet Muslims on the street, it's very common all across Europe, for example. Then, you know, what are the questions they're asking. So we include that. But that's by far it's not the, the kind of the drive of of what we do. It's a part of it. And so I think that's, that's another thing from inside our own mission. That's how we've been dealing with it. Yeah. And it's just meeting people where they're at. You know, I think about all the conversations that I'll have after a no longer music show. And I'm not coming in with a script. Right. Like, the hope is that I care enough to engage with them where they're at. And then depending on the person, I feel what you're saying is true. Let's pray together for other people. They're wrestling. You know, I had this kind of upbringing or this kind of religious experience. Or aren't Christians all like X or Y or Z? And they have they have a bush that's obscuring the cross, right? And lovingly based on hearing that, based on feeling that I then tried to articulate through the power of the Holy Spirit what's true to them. And you know, I firmly believe that I have helped people through the power of God along the way. They didn't necessarily come to Jesus that moment. But you know what? I'll have conversations all the time after NLM shows where someone will say something to the effect of, man, you Christians are cool. Like like you're not what I thought you were like. You're you're creative. You're you're real. You you ask questions. You you're not afraid of my questions, you know, and just this breaking down of the stereotypes of what it means to be a Christian, what how we're willing to engage and listen, how we have good answers to tough questions like, whoa, I didn't think there were good answers to that. That, to me, is just all part of being a whole person, engaging the world where they're at. And that's an example of using deeper intellectual questions or apologetics in Out of Love for someone like what you just described. Because you're you. You value their question. You care that they have a question, and so you've actually wanted to study enough to know how to answer it. And I think people can can also feel loved through that. Like, okay, you actually care. My question is important. And you're not just dismissing it because that's the other extreme you can go to. You can become, you know, the kind of Christian who goes, ah, you know, this all this intellectual stuff is, you know it. You just got to tell people that they need to follow Jesus. They just gotta accept Jesus, you know? Well, maybe they have a big question. It's important. It's important for them. It's important for God. And so if I'm going to be loving to them, I'm going to engage with them and take their questions seriously. So that's part of this as well. And you will bring them to the cross. You develop this relationship or like they see in NLM show like they do and they feel this this. It's not natural. It's like I feel compelled, like you were saying, Luke, um, it's because there's power in that. But then if they have questions, you can answer them. But then ultimately we don't want to just develop relationships and never tell anybody, you know the truth of who you know. That's I think there is there's situations like that too, where people are all about, um, having relationships, but they never tell them about Jesus. Well, and I don't think we're specifically talking about being buddies with someone after a show. I think it's about caring enough about them to apply the power of apologetics to their specific questions. And of course, to me, you almost have to be intellectually dishonest on purpose not to arrive at the cross because it's like, right, well, you know, I would love to follow Jesus, but I, I just had this horrible experience where my dad was abusive. And like, you talk about God as a loving father, how can I believe in a God that loves me? How am I to answer that question as a follower of Jesus and not end up at the cross? I would have to like do verbal mental gymnastics or. Yeah, well, I just don't know about God, you know? How could there be all this suffering in the world? Well, yeah, I agree. Let me tell you about God who didn't stay distant. But unlike any other religion or worldview, our God became one of us and entered into our suffering was with the poor, served the hungry, gave his very life because he was so passionate about justice. Okay, I'm talking about the cross, you know what I'm saying? So I think it's it. Invariably, Jesus is the metaphysical bedrock of everything. That's not just like a weird semantics, like, oh, some weird choose your own adventure, or I'm, like, awkwardly getting to the cross somehow, no matter what they brought up. But I am convinced with enough questions and enough like dialogue, you will get there because it is the for sure, for sure. But there has to be some intentionality to it though. I mean, I think that's right because not everybody does that. Yeah, true. Because, I mean, I know that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the use of apologetics in these types of conversations. If you don't even want to be telling about people, about Jesus at all, they weren't, we gotta back this up, hit rewind and start over, because that's a different kind of conversation, which is a valid one. But we're not we're not reaching someone on this conversation if they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I gotta tell people about Jesus. You know, then we might be in a world of trouble. Yeah. And they might be like, I thought this was the Oprah show. Yeah. So, I mean, there's so many examples of this. It's like Ben, back when we were doing stuff back in New Zealand with you when you were in high school, and we'd have these all night prayer meetings out in the bush, as they say in New Zealand. That's right. And they were so amazing. Some v some lollies. Pick and mix. We would. Yeah. We would have these bonfires. Illegal bonfires. And then we'd have all these energy drinks. And not that teenagers need energy drinks but carry on. Yeah. And then pray. Pray all night. But the thing that was interesting about that is all these people, their friends who were not Christians, wanted to come to the all night prayer meeting. They're like, can we come? You know, because it was so amazing. And, uh, one of Ben's friend, I remember he said to me, it was so weird. Here I am, a teenager sitting around in a circle and people are encouraging each other, saying, you know what they what they think, what they actually like about each other, what they like about each other, and then praying for each other. And it just blew him away. Yeah. And it made him go, I need to I want to know this. And so people would say, we want to go to the all night prayer meeting. And we'd say, well, it'd be good if you gave your life to Jesus first. You'll get more out of it. And so they'd go, oh, okay. And then they would they would want to do that. But it's just like I'm telling you people. And then you answer the questions. That's why you you need to study these deeper issues so that you can answer them. Because the test will come. It always does. And it's a protection for me as much as it is for anyone that I'm going to talk to about it. But I think that when people feel that difference, you know, authentically from us, so many of our are going to want to know about who Jesus is. Like you were just saying, I've never seen this before in other people. What's going on with you? You just said that. But I like how you referenced. I said it about myself. You know, reference yourself. That's good. The best thing to do is to quote yourself. Yeah. That works. I was gonna say, like, I think, um, it's really good to think about it practically for different. I didn't just say that. You did. No I didn't. Sorry. Did I just say it? I don't know, now I'm lost. You just referenced your own story. No, I didn't. Anyway. Keep going. Anyway, I was I was going to make some practical points because I think we'll have different. There are different kind of people joining us in in this and hearing this. And so maybe you're someone who really loves the apologetics stuff and you really get into it. Um, and or maybe you're someone who's never got into that, never read it and a bit like, okay, what are what are these guys talking about? Is that really necessary? And I feel like if you're somebody who hasn't, um, got into that, I think what we're saying is we're encouraging you. Do read into it more. Do build up your faith more on that side of things as well. Like think about the questions people are asking and how how we can answer those. Well, if you're somebody who's really into it, be careful to not be a nerd about it. Like, don't like I remember again, in the context of like university stuff, university ministry. Um, I remember um, because so my dad worked for years in this, um, starting Bible studies in universities. He would teach students how to lead a Bible study in a university. And there were different kinds of groups that we would come across. So some were evangelistic. They were inviting their friends. They were. That was the point. There were other groups where it just became a gathering of Christian students, and very often it would be a place where they would have these nerdy theological debates or these apologetic debates. And that's, I think, the danger, if you're more inclined, for that kind of thing, that you stop really thinking about a person in front of you, and you're and you get really nerdy about just trying to have the cool debate argument or say all the stuff that you know. So it depends on where you're coming from. Take different practical, you know, steps from this. And I think, you know, so the point being, how do we really encounter people where they are? How do we really love them like Jesus did? How do we have the compassion that Jesus does for people and engage them where they're at? I did not reference my own story. I didn't I didn't do that. You did do that. I didn't do that. You did do that. I think that this episode would be cooler if you did do that. But I didn't do that. Okay. But you did do that. I didn't do that. That was a weird ending. All right. Well, thank you guys for listening to the podcast. If you want to send your comments, your thoughts, how you employ and utilize apologetics. You can go to provoke an entire podcast at all, go on our social media, join our broadcast channel, let us know what you think. We got tons of good content coming up. As I said, I just interviewed doctor Frank Turek. Otherwise that's it. You guys got anything else to say, or should we just, uh, should we call it a day? Would you? Ben, I was wondering if you're ever going to interview us, you know, because you're interviewing all these other people. And I interviewed Chad kind of on the episode, you two. Yeah. Not it's not going to happen to you. It's not going to happen for you, Luke. Okay. So basically you've interviewed everybody else, but not me. Okay. If you have some sort of major life transition, then we'll think about it. Then you'll have the same kind of issues that I have now, right? People won't know what to say to me. Let's move on. We've done so well for so long. All right, that's it. Love you. I'll talk to you next time. Peace.

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