Transcript of Does the Bible Have CONTRADICTIONS!? (Pastors EXPLAIN) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

The Bible is not just to receive information, it is to experience transformation. You're not supposed to just be informed, you're supposed to be formed.

Inspiration means that the words of scripture are God's words themselves in such a way that to disbelieve or disagree with anything this says is to disbelieve or disagree with God himself.

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, but the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this. We want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Pointe. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend, and now enjoy the podcast. Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Araujo, and today I am excited because I am here with the one and only Pastor Paul Cunningham, reloaded.

Come on, man. What's up, bro? What's up, bro? You good?

Yeah, I'm good. You know why you're reloaded?

Why am I reloaded?

Because you've been to Israel, bro.

I have been to Israel, left about 3% of me there.

Oh my goodness, that's a lot.

hear the stuff last week, I'm not going to even take the time to recap what I mean by that. But let's just say I've found a really effective diet for breaking through weight plateaus people might be in. It's called acute gastroenteritis, man. But that being said, if you didn't catch last week, we went to Israel.

That's right, man.

You were there too, man. It was your first time as well.

My first time. That's right. But people are not as excited about that. People are more excited about you being there for the first time. And, uh, I will say Chad Gipsey, you've never seen him like this, ladies and gentlemen. This is the reloaded version. 'Cause now that you've been to Israel, like your knowledge of the Bible, it's just kind of like 10x. That's right, man.

Whole nother level of passion, dude. It's been fun this past week. People have been sending me messages on social and even emails saying, dude, you finally win. People were celebrating, man. It was fun. Fun to film that.

Hey, let me record this episode with this podcast episode with my phone because Jason is in the controller. So I want to make sure that after recording, he's not going to say, oh, I forgot to hit record or something. That's a joke, Jason. That's a joke.

We love you, Jason.

Trinity's off today, I suppose. And so, man, we got Jason in the controller.

Just so people know, not the Trinity, like God, but Trinity, who is usually behind the scenes working everything else out.

There you go, man. Hey, we're grateful that Jason's here, by the way. Hey, Jason, thank you, man.

That's right, man. But hey, man, it's just you and me this week. PJ had a busy day the other day.

That's right.

Doing some awesome interviews that we're gonna release here next week, especially, we're actually gonna release a special one this Wednesday, right?

That's right.

Who do we got? I'm gonna let you, you can do the reveal in case people didn't see it.

We have Philip Anthony Mitchell joining the Live Free Podcast.

Yes, he is.

And I will say, we were there in the conversation. It was a great conversation. This Wednesday, you don't You don't wanna miss it. Philip Anthony Mitchell with Pastor Josh Howerton on the Live Free Podcast is gonna be a great conversation. Don't wanna spoil it for you, but again, I think it's probably gonna be one of those episodes that's gonna be pretty impactful.

That's awesome, man. Yeah. And because you spent a good couple hours with him, we thought, hey, you and I could handle the first part of our normal episode. And we got some good stuff coming up today, right?

Bro, this is gonna be a great episode.

We got some really good helpful things that people ask a lot of questions about a lot of the time.

So I'm excited for this, Paul, because honestly, this is the episode that I wish I would've received when I was like graduating college.

Wow.

Or as a teenager. Honestly. Okay. Uh, today, by the way, for people asking, uh, Live Free Podcast coming to you from Lakewood Church in Dallas, Texas. Shout out.

Yep.

Today we're gonna talk about 2 Timothy chapter 3. We're gonna be asking the question, does the Bible have contradictions? Uh, we will be addressing what are those. Uh, we're gonna be, uh, reacting to a couple videos. Yeah. Of, uh, one is a TikTok theologian sharing his thoughts on some quote unquote Bible.

Very generous, very generous title.

Very generous title you gave him. Uh, some Bible contradictions and And we're going to be reacting to a video from Alex O'Connor as well. If people don't know, he is a famous, pretty recognizable atheist, actually former atheist. He's an agnostic now, but I've been watching him now for over a decade because he's OG YouTube. And so it's going to be fun.

Hey, brilliant guy. Brilliant guy.

Brilliant guy.

Doesn't mean that we agree. Obviously we very much strongly disagree. Brilliant guy. Brilliant guy. Worth it. Whereas the other one was a very generous description. Alex has got a good head on his shoulders. Really good thinker. Again, even if we disagree, but yeah, man, I think just for people to understand, it's like, man, this is such important, cuz we'll dive into it in a minute in the text. Like 2 Timothy 3 says that all scripture is inspired by God, but it also says it's useful. It's actually something that impacts our lives. But if that's true, we gotta like, it throws people off when they see videos like that, or they even read things like, wait a second, I thought this other passage says this. So that can really throw people off and then therefore throw their faith off and their confidence in God's word. And we want people to be confident in what God has said, because what God has said will change your life.

That's right, man.

So we really just wanna help this not become a stumbling block to people. I think this is gonna be really helpful, bro.

It's gonna be great. Um, by the way, uh, do you know, movie I watched recently?

What movie did you watch?

Speed.

Okay. I was like, okay, if you had not said that, I was gonna do a follow-up and ask you if you finally watched Speed, 'cause you had never seen it. What'd you think?

People need to know, like, Josh and Paul have this list of like really old movies, uh, that I got.

Wow.

I mean, okay, fine. I mean, they're not, they're not recent movies.

Teenagehood.

Yeah.

Really old.

That's, that's what I'm saying. That's why I'm saying they're not recent movies.

Uh, but I will say, bro, I will say for fun, um, it was a great movie. I was gonna say it's a great movie. Wasn't it amazing?

I mean, it's, it's hard not to like a young Keanu Reeves with young Sandra Bullock. Yeah, good old classic action, man. I will say, I will, I will say this. They don't make movies like that anymore.

No, no, no. Pop quiz, hotshot.

Is that part of the movie?

Yeah, that's part of the movie. Okay, you're really paying attention. My goodness. Maybe I'll use that when we get to the contradictions. Wait, who said that? Huh? That was the bad guy. That was the bad guy. Hopper. Yeah, yeah.

And he's got personality. Yeah, dude.

For sure, dude.

That's hilarious.

But I love that you watched it and that you enjoyed it.

Yeah.

For people again, who might be new to the podcast, this is an ongoing thing where Pastor Josh and I have a list of movies for Carlos, mainly movies from the '90s and early 2000s.

I thought you guys would be—

Just back when movies were good.

I thought you guys would be encouraging me to read the Bible. You guys are encouraging me to watch Tombstone, Braveheart.

Listen, Bible on one hand, those DVDs. Well, you don't do DVDs. You mean VHSs. Those movies are VHSs. You know what? Okay. Wow. I'm feeling some animosity just rising in my heart to you, bro.

You know what? We gotta talk about the Bible. Before we do, um, man, we wanna— so this weekend, it's a big weekend. This upcoming weekend, why?

Oh, we've got baptism weekend coming up this weekend, bro. Uh, man, yeah, here at Lake Point in person, we're gonna be baptizing hundreds and hundreds of people. And we do this as a celebration of what God has already done in their life. So we don't do this in order to save people. We do this because God has already saved these people, but it's a way for them to go public with their faith and for us to join them in celebrating what God has already done in their lives. And it's amazing. We've got people, hundreds already signed up. But then also what always happens without fail is that people will be there and they'll see what God has done in their life. And they'll feel conviction of like, man, he's done that in my life too, but I've never taken this step. So oftentimes we'll give an invitation to people to come down and we'll be there after the service is over for like half an hour sometimes seeing people be baptized. So really powerful. If you can make it in person, would encourage you, especially if you're here in the, obviously the DFW area. How does someone sign up if they're actually local?

Yep.

If they're a part of Lake Pointe or if they're local and can join us in person, How would they sign up?

Yeah, we'd love to help them. If you are within driving distance, or if you call Lake Pointe your church home, text the word LIFE to 20411. And we'd love to follow up with you personally. It's going to be great. It's going to be a great party.

And hey, even if you've already taken that step, this is a great weekend to come. Celebrate. Celebrate. Because when we do baptisms here, we don't do like a silent little golf clap or anything like that. Like we cheer and we hoot and holler. It's going to be fun. Come play.

I was going to make a joke about, uh, Frozen, Chosen, Reformed, uh, and how we, uh—

Don't do that.

Okay, wait, this is a different episode.

Okay, great. That's for another time.

Okay, okay. Hey, if you're on YouTube or Spotify, we'd love to give away hats. Uh, we got free giveaway every single week. So comment hat, uh, in the description, or sorry, in the comments on YouTube or Spotify. Also, to get our Live Free merch, you can go to livefree.shop or text the word hat to 220411. Thank you for subscribing on YouTube, all the places, bro. YouTube's like blowing up recently. It's a little wild.

It's been insane, honestly.

So praise God for that. Uh, we are passionate about, uh, not so much, uh, numbers, but really just reaching one more.

That's right.

So man, if this is helpful, that encourages us a lot. One of my favorite things, Paul, is to hear people share, man, how this can be helpful for their own personal life, for their group. Um, so praise God for that. Also to download the Lake Point app. Again, if we're just trying to be helpful, giving you resources and things that you can use to, uh, deepen your faith, you can, uh, through the Lake Point app, you can get the daily Bible reading plan, the weekly sermon, an early release of this episode, uh, with the one and only Chad Gipalsy, the Epistle Missile Reloaded. And you can also get the discipleship guide. Text the word app to 20411, or go to Apple or Google Play Store. Hey bro, week number 5, Fight the Good Fight.

Almost, man. Last few weeks of the series. It's crazy.

It's great. What'd you think?

Oh man. Incredible. PJ knocked it out. Pastor Josh knocked it out of the park as usual, man. It was just incredible. Incredible. What about you? Anything laying on you either from what he said or maybe some nuggets from 2 Timothy 3 in the passage that stood out to you?

Man, I think 2 Timothy, Paul, is probably one of my favorite books because, you know, there's just so much in there. One thing that, as I was reading through this text, I had to, you know, it stands out to me is, when you read the Bible, you need to understand the Bible is not just a mirror to look at, but a lens to look through.

That's good.

So what you need to do is you need to grab your Bible. And then what you need to understand is you can see the world through the lens of the word. So we don't just look at the word, we look through the word and into the world. So we can understand what's going on out there by what we read in here. So let me just read one more time, 2 Timothy chapter 3. This says, but understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty, for people will be lovers of self. That's an interesting word. way to phrase what it's saying. Lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless. Check out these words: unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power. And then Paul tells Timothy, hey Timothy, Avoid such people. So a couple things. Again, we're looking at the word through the word to see the world. Um, bro, this is literally like a description of our culture. Yeah. Paul's talking about the last days.

Like when you look at our social media saturated world, um, lovers of self, proud, arrogant, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous. Like literally the whole list.

The Bible is so irrelevant. It doesn't speak to anything what the world is actually like.

Like, um, And then it says, people having an appearance of godliness, but denying its power. And then it says, avoid such people. By the way, Christians are called to be loving, compassionate, reach out to people to share the gospel. And the Bible commands Christians to avoid some people.

Hmm.

Those 2 things are true. And so when you read this particular list, what you'll find, Paul, is there's a theme here of repetition of being a lover of something. So it says, lovers of self, lovers of money, not lovers of good, lovers of pleasure, not lovers of God. It's almost as if Paul is saying, hey Timothy, watch out what your highest love is, because if you make you your highest love, everything else becomes distorted. All your other affections becomes distorted. And then another thing that I find interesting, again, he's talking about the quote unquote last days. Yeah. That there will be times of difficulty. And then in the last days, it says that people will be lovers of selves. Bro, has there been any other generation in history that has been a quote unquote, a lover of self?

Oh, it's insane, man.

Like today, think about it. We literally are the generation that we have our own little websites with my name and my likes, my opinions, my thoughts, my photos. We are the generation that has championed self-expression, self-love, self-care, self-empowerment, self-esteem. And yet you see what's out there. And then when you read the Bible, what you find is Jesus' invitation is, hey, it's not self-love, it's self-denial.

That's good.

Jesus said in Matthew 16:24, if anybody wants to be my disciple, let him him deny himself and take up your cross and follow me. Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Some people hear that and be like, whoa, like, this is so intense. It feels super radical. But biblical Christianity looks radical in a world that has normalized what God calls sin.

Yes.

And so again, um, what people— when people read this verse, they'll be like, oh yeah, the world out there is terrible. Actually, some people think Paul is talking about people in the church.

Yeah.

Because it says that people will have a form of godliness, but they're gonna be denying its power. And so again, I start here because as we are ready to get to talk about the Bible, Paul is telling Timothy, hey Timothy, I'm trying to prepare you to lead faithfully in a world that is corrupt, heartless, unholy, and honestly just difficult. And really it's in order for you to be faithful, you're gonna have to stand on the word of God. You're gonna have to be efficient at handling the word of God, and you're gonna have to be preaching the word of God. What do you think?

Man, I love what you just said. And I love the connection you just made between the idea of, hey, the behavior he talks about here at the beginning of what the world is normally like. And by the way, you're totally right. Like, has there ever been a generation in history that was more obsessed with ourselves?

Bro, this is literally what we're seeing today.

Like, even just think about some of the popular expressions that seem like benign and innocent, like YouTube. I don't know if it's still this way, but in the early days of YouTube, like the catchphrase was broadcast Hey bro, don't hate on YouTube.

Talk about the other system.

We're on YouTube. So again, I mean—

I'm a little bit of a YouTube fan over here.

I'm not hating on YouTube. I'm just saying, just think about that. That is how it originally advertised. It's like broadcast you. You can be the main star in the movie of your life or whatever you wanna say.

That's right.

Even, and I noticed this, man, even 10 years ago when I was a student pastor and being on social media on Instagram and Facebook, the common thing was selfie, selfie, selfie, selfie, selfies. And I actually made this observation, a loving observation to some of my students. I just said, hey man, like if I scroll your feed on Instagram or on Facebook, in this case, younger generation, maybe like TikTok, things like that, I can usually spot the 3 or 4 things that are most important to you in your life, like the things that you're posting on there. So man, if you're posting a lot of pictures of food and of hunting or whatever, it's like, all right, man, this person loves to hunt. They love to eat, all that kind of stuff. Or, hey, they post a lot about sports. Okay, they love sports. So then I just said, hey, if every single picture you post is a selfie, what are you saying is most important in your life?

Yeah.

You. And so I'm just saying, like, we are a generation, we are obsessed with ourselves. And yet I don't think that's any coincidence that this is also one of the most depressed generations.

It's making us miserable.

Yeah. Because the more we look inward, the more depressed we get. Because life was actually not meant to be focused on ourselves, but be focused outside of ourselves, ultimately on Jesus, but then also on other people. So I love those observations, but I also loved your connection to the word of God, because the idea is, is man, these are increasingly the world that we're living in. And if man, we're going to be faithful in the midst of that world, And if we're going to look different than that world, then ultimately we have to be grounded in what the word of God says. Because there's what the world says we should chase after and what we should be, and there's what God's word says we should chase after and we should be. And so we've got to be grounded in it and we have to have confidence in it. A few other things that stuck out to me, and then maybe even I think it'd be helpful as we're setting up really a conversation about the Bible and supposed contradictions in the Bible, might be good for you to clarify for people of like, hey, what is the Bible?

What is it not? Give some people some context. Before we get there, some things that stood out to me. Paul here says that all Scripture is God-breathed or is inspired. All Scripture is inspired by God, specifically looking at 2 Timothy 3:16. That word Scripture is used 51 times-ish. That's a funny thing to say, times-ish, when I literally gave a specific number, but around 50 times.

Yeah, 51.7-ish. I don't know.

You know, give or take none. But yeah, it's used around 50 times. in the New Testament, and in almost every place, it's talking about the Old Testament. However, there is a place—

Interesting.

That gives us a sense that it is not only talking about the Old Testament. In a minute, I want to talk about how Jesus viewed the Old Testament, how he viewed the Bible. But most of the time in the New Testament, it's talking about the Old Testament. There's actually another place where it seems to be broader than that. It doesn't seem to be, it is broader than that. In 2 Peter 3:16, Peter uses the word Scripture in an interesting way. He's talking about Paul's letters. Interesting. And he's kind of giving some things to people and helping people understand some things. And I love what he says. He says, there are some things in them, in Paul's letters, that are hard to understand, which by the way, I just love that. That should be encouraging to people that if you've ever been reading Paul and you're like, what in the world is he saying here? And this is tough for me. The Apostle Peter literally had the exact same opinion. He literally had the exact same opinion.

Like the guy who was with Jesus for like 3-ish years.

Yeah. And who, by the way, wrote his own letters.

Like Jesus's best friend, basically.

That's right.

And who wrote part of the Bible. Even he said, yeah, sometimes I don't even know I know what Paul is saying, man.

I'm right there with you. But he says, okay, they have some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction. So he's saying, hey, they take what is in God's word and they twist it, they manipulate it. But here's what's so interesting, as they do the other scriptures.

Hmm.

So the other scriptures here, Peter is talking about the Old Testament, but he just put Paul's letters on par with the Old Testament right there. So we already get this sense that what is happening is, is they recognize not just Paul, but the other apostles writing in the New Testament. as authoritative God-breathed scripture. Now let's talk about how Jesus views scripture, how he sees the Old Testament.

Okay.

Again, I think this will help us to start to kind of begin to weave a little bit of a tapestry of the things we're going to be talking about. Jesus says in John 10:35, speaking of the Old Testament, that scripture cannot be broken. In the context, he is saying that, hey, scripture has said this, it can't be broken. So what it said can't then therefore be wrong. In John 17:17, he says, sanctify them in your truth. Your word is truth. Mark 12:36, introducing Psalm 110, which was written by David. Jesus says this, David himself in the Holy Spirit declared. So right there we see, hey, yes, David wrote what he wanted to write, but actually it was the Holy Spirit who inspired him. So Jesus himself believed that the Old Testament was inspired by God.

Hmm.

If you don't believe me on that one, look at Matthew 19:4-5. Jesus is teaching on marriage and he refers to the book of Genesis. And there he says, he who created them, Adam and Eve said. So, in the original context, God isn't directly speaking. It's the narrator of Genesis describing it. And yet, Jesus says that what the narrator said, God himself said.

That's interesting.

So, here's why this is important. Jesus had a high, high view of Scripture. He believed the Old Testament was inspired by God, that it was God's breath, his words on a page. And so, if we're going to be followers of Jesus, we should probably have the same opinion as Jesus on the Bible. And so at the end of the day, when people begin pointing out contradictions or they begin saying, hey, it's not just the word, it's not the word of God, these are not God's words, these are human words. I'm like, hey, if I believe that Jesus was the Son of God, that he predicted his death, he predicted his resurrection and then accomplished it, I'm going to go with whatever he says.

Yeah, he's probably right then.

He probably knows what he's talking about.

He knows more than you.

If a guy, you know, if a guy basically claims to be the Son of God and that you're going to kill me, I'm going to rise, and then he pulls it off, you should probably just go and defer to him on anything else he says. And so if he is saying that the scripture is God-breathed, that it's inspired, and that what God's word says is what God himself is saying, not just what humans have said. I'm going to go with him. So those are just a few things that stuck out for me.

That's great.

But that being said, let's kind of maybe begin to kind of slide into talking about contradictions in the Bible. Maybe just give some context for people before we get into these and how to approach these contradictions. Like, what is the Bible? What is it? And what does it stand for?

Yeah. Let's start with— so again, we're getting ready to talk about Bible contradictions. Let's start with what the Bible is not and what the Bible actually is. So Let me, this is probably a simple way to start. What the Bible is not, it's not just another book. So as we talk about some of these contradictions, Paul, what we can't do, man, is we can't just literally grab the Bible and be like, well, let me just, let's, let me just get this book from my bookshelf and let's just open it up and see if it contradicts itself. Like, this is, this is not just another book. If you zoom out all the way, the Bible is the bestselling book of all time in history.

Wow.

I believe it's Guinness World Records data says that it's been over 5 to 7 billion copies have been printed, sold, distributed. distributed historically. And by the way, there is literally no other book that comes even close to that.

Nothing close.

The Bible is the most translated book in history. As of 2025, it's been translated to over 4,000 of the world's 7,000 living languages. And in addition to that, more than 99% of the world's population has access today to at least some scripture in a language that they do use. And so again, that— no comparison with any other book. Um, so it's not just another book. Here's what the Bible is. We, Paul, we have a lot of like brand new Bible readers, people that are like, man, I, you know, I kind of grew up in church, but never really cared about it. But today I just bought my first Bible. Like we have a lot of those. So let me, for some people, this might be kind of obvious. For a lot of people, probably not, especially if you're new to the Bible. The Bible, we have a couple of Bibles right here. So the Bible is a collection of books written over a period of roughly 15 centuries, thousands of years ago by more than 40 different authors. authors in different contexts with different socioeconomic statuses, with different writing styles, in different literally literary genres across 3 different continents and in 3 different languages.

And even while all of that is true, all of it points to one gospel, one message, when we find that in one person and his name is Jesus.

Yeah.

That's the Bible. Now we, you and me and people in our culture, we're so familiar with scripture that we treat this as if it's just another book. But when you at history, like there is literally no comparison. There's actually a series of quotes from the most influential people in history that are— I could literally list the whole thing. Let me just share a couple. Napoleon Bonaparte, shout out French. He said, the Bible is no mere book, but a living creature with a power that conquers all that opposes it.

Can you now translate that into French?

No, I'm not gonna do that right now. I'm tempted. You're tempting me now.

I know I'm tempting you.

Don't take advantage of that. That sounds kind of fun.

Carlos says that French is one of the 17 languages that he speaks.

Yeah. We need to keep going. Isaac Newton, he says, we account the scripture of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatsoever.

So real quick, 'cause that actually sets up for people who, you know, like, oh, these are obvious contradictions. The Bible contains errors. Isaac Newton is, you know, a little bit of a heavy hitter intellectually, by the way.

He's a little smart.

That's not, that's not a theologian. That is, you know, anything we pretty much begin to know about physics, it begins with our guy Isaac Newton. So, you know, Just saying, he's got some weight too. He's a decently smart guy. He's not an idiot reading the Bible.

You know, he's got—

I decided to cut in there. Keep going.

He makes a couple good points. John Quincy Adams, that's the 6th president of the United States. He said, the Bible of all books in the world is the one that contributes most to make men good, wise, and happy. Okay. So even today, when you look at the Bible, the Bible is actually illegal, totally banned, restricted, or dangerous to own in countries like North Korea, Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Iran, and Algeria and more. Now you hear all of this and you're like, Man, how can this ancient document or ancient collection of books be so influential, so consequential, so treasured in history, and yet at the same time so opposed, so maligned, so hated, and so dangerous? Here's why. Because the Bible was written down by man, but it was authored by God.

That's good.

There is no other book like it. So when we approach it, one, there's gonna be a sense of humility.

Yeah.

Which often you see we're lacking this when in some of these conversations, but you have to approach it with at least a respect of like, Hey, even if you don't believe in what it says, you gotta acknowledge that this is not just another book. Um, so this is a couple of things I would say. Paul, um, you are going to share with us a couple of theological terms regarding what we believe about the Bible. What are those?

Yeah. But before I get there, I just want to, just want to, man, you did such a good job there, Carlos. That was so good. Just kind of giving us that context. Yeah. Just maybe even a couple of things to add on. Um, one is just to help you, to help you understand just how insane it is when you're reading this, because this, I'll even get into this way is like when I said earlier, and I probably should even get in context then, is that when it says this is inspired by God, that all Scripture is God-breathed, it literally is. It's God's breath on a page. Yes, it's human authors writing this in their genre, their style, with their vocabulary over, you said it, 1,500 years. And yet, if it says it is inspired by God, the idea is that they are saying what they want to say, but God is saying what he wants to say through them. And so simply put, inspiration means that the words of Scripture are God's words themselves in such a way that to or disagree with anything this says is to disbelieve or disagree with God himself, because these are his words on a page.

Can I ask you a question?

Well, hold on. Let me say one more thing. Let me say one more thing and you can ask the question. But I just, I wanted to connect it to a personal thing. That means that like, when you're reading scripture, like, think of this, like, how did God create in Genesis? He spoke creation into existence. Let there be light and there was light. In scripture, it talks about how often when God speaks, the earth shakes. And so what that means is when I'm reading God's word, I'm reading the same voice and the same words.

Wow.

I may not hear it audibly, but I am reading those words. And so in the same way that God's simple voice and his words had the power to bring the universe, to bring creation itself into existence, imagine what can it bring into existence in my life. Imagine the power it can exert in and through my life. So again, this is when we say this, this isn't simply to know academic things about the Bible. It's because we believe that God's word is powerful in general. It brought the heavens and the earth into existence, and it can be powerful in our lives. And I just want to make that connection with people of why this matters so much. Were you about to say—

No, no, no, actually keep going because I'll ask after.

Yeah. And so when we say, when we say that the idea that the Bible is inspired, we're not saying that humans were robots and that they didn't write what they wanted to write. No, again, they wrote in different genres and styles of their day. We're also not saying that God kind of picked up a telephone and called them and said, hey, now I want you to write this sentence. And now that I want you to write that sentence.

Instead, there's this fancy Although I will say there are parts in scripture that says, thus says the Lord.

There are some parts.

Okay.

That's usually more in the prophetic literature.

There you go.

But like with the Apostle Paul, he's writing a letter to a people at that time.

That's right.

And he has a message for people at that time. And yet the Holy Spirit was inspiring to write it because not only did God wanna say something to the people at that time, he wanted to say something to all people for all time.

That's right.

God's word was timely to them and it's timeless for us and for me now. And so that's the idea of inspiration is that God has a message to say to them, but he also has a message to say to us. And so it was the authors of scripture wrote what they wanted to write, but the author, God, had them write what he also wanted them to write. It's called congruence, the idea of both things can be true. They wrote what they wanted to write, but yet they also wrote what God wanted them to write. So something you wanted to double-click on that before we talk about narrative?

Keep going, keep going. Because we're going to take it— there's all these different places we could take it.

Yeah, there's all these potential different places that we could take it. But still, I just want people to understand that.

So then— So hold on, Inspire, because I'm trying to help people understand. And inspired, you're saying, means that men wrote what they were— they wanted to write in a sense, and led by the Spirit to write, but it is God speaking through what they wrote.

Exactly. And that's where you even think about what, when I said earlier about what Jesus said, he said, David himself in the Holy Spirit declared. And then he talks about it again. He quotes Genesis and he said, hey, God said this. But when he says God said, that's simply a narration part in the book of Genesis. So the words of the author of Genesis, Moses, were the words, Jesus says, of God himself. Both can be true at the same time.

Yeah.

Then this gets us into a word called inerrancy. So, hey, it's really the idea that the Bible does not err and it does not have errors in it. And this is key to qualifying things we got to say, in the original manuscripts that it was originally written in, and according to what God intended to say. And the idea is this, is that if God cannot lie and if he cannot err, the things that he would have people write and that are inspired by him would not contain lies and would not contain error in them.

Makes sense.

So we gotta qualify and say, hey, in the original manuscripts, because we don't have the originals. We don't have the original thing that Moses or Paul or Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John wrote. Instead, we have copies. Now we have thousands of copies.

Overwhelming amount of copies.

Overwhelming amount, more than any other document in ancient history. And so we can know with 99% accuracy of what the originals did say, say, but there are places where there are some variations. And what's amazing about our Bibles is it will literally give us notes and saying, hey, some manuscripts actually say this. And so we can say, hey, there might be discrepancies, not discrepancies, but there might be some debates in some place about where it says.

Yeah.

But that's important because sometimes people say, well, hey, there's an error. It might be, the error might simply be that we don't know 100% certain what the original manuscript said. So God was inerrant. I mean, sorry, scripture was inerrant in the original manuscript and according to what he wanted to say. This is important, especially when we're talking a little bit about, hey, are there scientific Well, if the Bible is intending to be a scientific textbook, then yeah, there might be some places where it seems like that's the case. But there are many cases where, hey man, the Bible wasn't intending to make a scientific statement on a weather phenomenon, or we'll talk about the sun, you know, rotating around the earth. That's not what it intended to say. So those are key, 2 key things that I need to say that will help set up for some of our ongoing conversation. Anything you think I missed there that would be helpful?

And by the way, I know for some people they're like, oh, but what about the— we're literally about to, like, we're going to go through specific examples A whole bunch of them, actually. It's going to be really fun.

Because with that being said, like, hey, if I just said that the Bible is inspired and these are God's words, and hey, if God can't err, we would say then that the Bible cannot err, cannot have errors in it, again, in the original manuscripts, then people will be like, well, wait a second. It seems like there's places in the Bible that just straight up contradict each other. How can that— that shows, hey, Paul, that shows that what 2 Timothy 3:16 says isn't true. No, the Bible does have errors. In fact, I think we got maybe a video to kind of show an example of this. You want to introduce it to us?

Yeah, man. We, uh, again, people live on social media and we're gonna have a little fun here. So this right here is a video of, uh, man, somebody sent us this video, I suppose. And, uh, Paul here, uh, Reloaded, will be, uh, sharing a response to this video.

Okay.

So I guess, uh, Jason, let's, let's, let's play it.

Yeah, so I can name a few contradictions in the Bible. So the Bible says that God is all-knowing. Psalm 147:5 says that his understanding 1 John 3:20 says that God knows all things. Matthew 10:30 says that he knows the number of hairs on our heads. But in Genesis chapter 18, God says he's going to go down to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to know how sinful they're being. An all-knowing God would know that. He wouldn't have to go down there. Also, an all-present God would already be there. Another contradiction, or I guess inconsistency, is that in the books of Matthew and Luke, in the resurrection story, it says that the women who discovered the empty tomb empty tomb, ran off and told everyone that the tomb was empty. But in the Book of Mark, it says that the women were afraid and didn't tell anyone. And then, of course, there's the whole God is love, but then it also says that love is patient and kind, never jealous or boast.

But then it says that God is a jealous God.

So, how could God be love if love isn't jealous? Oh yeah, there are a lot more.

There's—

All right, I think that's enough for now. Yeah. And so, like, yeah, you'll see stuff like this.

What say you?

I guess he's right. I guess, man, I've never seen those things before, and I have to abandon my whole faith now.

Hey, first of all, first of all, hey, man, don't bully him. Yeah, don't bully him. Hold on, hold on. I got you, Paul. I got you. Uh, first of all, hey, Carlos, hey, hold on. I want to do this, uh, to that young, young man sending that video. Hey, thank you for sharing that video. Yes, we'd love to respond to you. Yeah, but I will say, I wanna, I wanna, uh, for people that are wrestling with some of these questions, hey, those questions are welcome.

Yes.

Like, it's okay to look at some things and be like, wait a minute, What about that? That's fine. Like, we want to talk about those things. So Paul.

Well, a few things. I'm not going to go into every little thing he said, I think, 'cause some of the categories we're going to cover here in a bit, we'll hit some of the things that he did say, but here's what I will say is like, I see some videos like that and usually just guys on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook Reels. And like, for guys like that, you know, I would just say, man, I would love if I could get a cup of coffee with that kid and just say, okay, well, let's talk about some of those things. 'Cause most of those things that he threw out, if you just give me 30 seconds on most of them, I'd say, hey, there's pretty plausible explanations. So for example, on the whole, well, Well, God is love, but then 1 Corinthians says that love is not jealous. It's a classic example where, hey, the same word can be used in certain ways, in certain contexts that would be appropriate, in other ways that would be inappropriate. So for example, yeah, it says love is not jealous, 1 Corinthians 13. And so yeah, I should not be jealous if my wife were simply to say hello to a male coworker, but I actually should be jealous if my wife slept with that male coworker.

Something's wrong if you don't have a sense of quote unquote jealousy.

Jealousy is this sense of like an internal angst or even anger of the idea of, hey, something that I think belongs to me. Well, in that case, if my wife is having an affair, she is giving what belongs to me to someone who does not or is not supposed to have it. So in that case, I'd simply say like, there's an example where we say, yeah, on one level jealousy is bad, but on that level jealousy is actually an appropriate thing that I should be jealous for my wife's covenantal love.

Yeah.

The reason I give that analogy is that usually when it says God is jealous in the Bible, it's in relationship to his people, Israel, and it talks about unusual context that they are his bride. Right. That's right. And they are giving love to a different god or a different thing that only belongs to him. So I think that's just an example of many. We won't go into the rest, but I'm like, hey, most of those are explainable. Like, let me just say this. Like, sometimes you'll see examples like that or small, but other times you'll see former Christians or former pastors who will go on there and they'll say, well, man, you know what finally did it for me? And the reason I had to deconstruct my faith is because I just had to eventually get to a point where I was intellectually honest that there were contradictions and So they'll list 5 or 10 obvious contradictions in the Bible that now that they're so honest and vulnerable and open that they have to admit.

Yeah.

And I'm just gonna be honest. These people drive me crazy. They annoy the crap out of me because that's— those statements are so foolish in the grand scheme of history. So let's think about this. Wow. So like, man, yeah, for 2,000 years, no one noticed these errors or has created plausible answers for them until you came along and saw them. And then when you go and you do videos talking about them, you don't give those plausible explanations. You just give your side of it. Man, thank you for your service. Or, hey, like, wow. You mean like people like Anselm and Augustine and Thomas Aquinas and Isaac Newton, as you said earlier, and C.S. Lewis and so many intellectual giants. Well, man, they just must not have had the intellectual humility to acknowledge those contradictions that are so obvious. I am so glad that you are a God-given gift to the church and to the world. And now, whereas they were not able to be humble, have humility and be honest, you have come along and done it for everybody.

Yeah.

Congratulations. Give me a break. I get it. You lost your old platform and now you gotta build a new one. And it's probably better to do this than to sell used cars. I get it. You gotta do something, but come on. So I know I'm getting fired up right now and people are like, man, that was kind of low. But here's my thing is actually scripture does say correct people with patience, but there are places where Paul and others call out people specifically if they're leading other people astray.

Yeah.

So it fires me up specifically, not so much about videos like we just saw, but when I see ex-pastors or people who have deconstructed who are throwing out these things that there's explanations for. So, that being said, now that I've vented a little bit and I got it off my system— Get it off, man. I got it out.

You got more? You got more?

Thanks for being my therapist. Oh, I got more, bro. I had to filter. I didn't want to go too specific.

Drink a little water, bro.

I need to get a little water.

We need to get you some coffee over here.

Okay. That being said, okay, it fires me up because, man, like, when people do that, a lot of people who don't, like, know what to do with these things, it destroys their faith. And by the way, they're gonna have to answer for that. Bro, that's so true. That's why if you see me getting fired up, man, Paul really took that personally. Yeah, because I've seen how some people who don't know what to do with that, it wrecks their faith and it shouldn't. And so actually, before we jump in, we're going to give in a few minutes, 5 big categories of types of contradictions and some of the leading types in each one. Before we want to do that, I just want to give a simple framework for how do you respond to videos like what we just saw? And how do you respond to videos from ex-pastors or ex-famous Christians saying they're deconstructing because of these glaring, obvious contradictions?

Okay. Okay. Hold on. You addressed the jealousy thing from the TikToker, um, he mentioned too that God seems to be asking questions he didn't know before. Is that what— like, you know, uh, let me just— like, I, I play with my 4-year-old son every single night. I'll, I'll be like, before going to bed, he'll, he'll hide and I'll say, where are you? I don't see you.

Yeah.

Um, I know where he is.

Yeah.

Um, because I'm, I'm his father. And so when, when God seems to be asking questions and when he seems to not know one thing he knows.

It's what the— it's what a fancy phrase for that is called anthropomorphic language, is that God has to use language we can understand to help us understand a God we can't completely understand. And so even for like, for example, there's one passage where it says God changed his mind. And yet in the exact same passage, it says God is not a man that he should change his mind. So it's almost like he's trying to say to us, hey, from your perspective, it's going to look like I changed my mind, but I'm not, I'm not like you where I do that. He's just trying to communicate.

I think Calvin calls it baby talk.

He has to communicate to us through baby talk.

Yeah.

But let me just give a framework for like, whether it's this video or like more sophisticated ones. Like, if you're a Christian, what do you do? Here's the first thing. Don't freak out. As I already kind of said, as I was going on my little rant a few minutes ago, is that for the last thousands of years, people have seen these things and very smart people have come up with very plausible explanations for seeming contradictions. So, when you see videos like this, don't freak out if they bring up something you've never thought about, because someone else has thought about it and probably given a really good answer for it. So, there's a few good resources you can go to. One is like Zondervan. If you look up like Zondervan Book of Bible Difficulties or something like that, it's a great book that will literally go book by book of the Bible and point out some of these things and give plausible explanations for them. You've also got guys like Wes Huff, Gavin Ortlund, Frank Turek, who's been a guest.

They're great.

Man, just go. And if you ever hear one, like just Google and see if someone has given a response to it. Just know, like if you first encounter it, don't freak out. Like we've had the Bible for a long time. People have given very plausible answers. The other thing I tell people of why not freak out is the early church would have seen these things too, especially when we start talking about the Gospels. They would have seen supposed contradictions, and yet it didn't freak them out. Why? Probably because they had access to information we didn't have. Like, if they really thought it completely— like the Gospels completely contradicted each other, they probably would have said, well, hey, we only got to pick one of these, which is the right one? But yet we got all 4.

Yeah.

So, they probably just knew some things that we unfortunately today don't know. Okay. Second So here's the second thing to do. Don't freak out, number one. Number 2, define contradiction correctly. So even like, if I'm talking to one of these people, if I were talking to this person, I would say, hey, what do you mean by contradiction? Because the law of non-contradiction says this: something cannot be A and non-A. So the classic example is to say, hey, Carlos, you and I cannot be married bachelors. Those are mutually exclusive.

I see, like separately, you mean, obviously.

Yeah, you cannot be a married bachelor because by the proper definition of those, those are mutually exclusive. It is impossible to reconcile them. Or like, here's the thing. I can't say, Carlos, I only— that's the keyword, I only have one arm and I have 2 arms. Those are mutually exclusive. So a contradiction is something that is impossible to reconcile. A difference is something that is possible to reconcile. So for example, if I say there is a table in this room, is that correct?

That's correct.

If I say, and people won't be able to see this because they can't see the whole room, there are 2 tables in this room, is that correct?

That's correct.

That is correct because there is a table off camera over there. In this case, I was focusing on this particular table. So where this helps is that you'll be in some accounts like, hey, well, was there one angel at the tomb or was there 2? Yes. Because in the synoptic gospel, that's Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, we're going to say that a few times, where if it says, if it focuses on one angel, it doesn't say only one. It's just focusing on a specific. So again, you got to define contradiction correctly. Number 3, you got to realize that most of the supposed contradictions in the Bible are based on logical fallacies or improper interpretive techniques, not just of the Bible, but of literature in general. So can I give a few? Yeah, go ahead. riff together on these. One is that just because something is unexplained doesn't mean it's unexplainable.

There you go.

This is a logical fallacy. It's like, oh, well, it doesn't explain this. So therefore it must be unexplainable. It must be a contradiction. That's not true. Kenneth Kantzer, who's a theology professor, would tell this story of a mother of a friend of his who was killed. And he first learned of it through a mutual friend who said that the mother had been standing on a street corner and been hit by a bus and died. shortly after. Sometime later, he was talking to the grandson of that grandmother who had gotten information from his mom. So the grandmother's mom saying, actually, like she died because she was in a car, got in an accident and was thrown out and was killed instantly. It's like, well, wait a second. These two are contradictory.

Hmm.

One said she got hit by a bus and died shortly after. The other one said she got thrown from a car. Well, eventually he was able to get both the grandson and the friend in the same room and And here's what he found out. The mother and grandmother was hit by a bus. A car came by and saw her, put her into the car to take her to the hospital. On the way there, that car got into an accident because she wasn't strapped down. She was thrown from the vehicle and killed instantly.

Wow.

So, actually, there was an explanation. It wasn't contradictory. It was complementary. So, here's the thing we got to know is that what Dr. Cancer was able to do was to get those people in the same room? Well, we're 2,000 years removed now from the Gospels specifically, and more than that from the Old Testament. We can't do that. But what we can do is we can ask, are there at least plausible explanations for the differences that we see in Scripture? There's other things that we can say, but we'll get to it as we get to the Gospels.

Yeah.

Here's one last thing. This is a really, really important one. When it comes specifically to the Gospels and the differences in them that we're going to double-click on today, and some that we won't have time for. Here's what I like to tell people, focus on what the critics conveniently ignore. And that is where they are actually in unanimous agreement.

There you go.

So you'll see videos like this and other videos that we'll see from Alex O'Connor, and they'll focus on what the Bible seems to not have in common, the gospel specifically. I'm like, no, no, focus on what they do have in common. Every gospel agrees that there was a man named Jesus, that he performed miracles, that he preached and taught on the kingdom of God, that he predicted his own death and resurrection, that he was then arrested, charged with blasphemy, convicted, put to death on a cross and then rose on the 3rd day. They all agree on that.

Yeah.

Focus on what they do agree on. And so, and even like extend it beyond that, I did some research and the places where all the gospels relate the same event, 80% of the time, they completely agree with each other. And the remaining 20% of the time, about 12 to 15% of those are things that are very easily explainable. And so only in about 5 to 10% of the cases do we have something that's moderately difficult to pretty difficult to explain. So here's an analogy I use. I know we're getting a little long-winded on this, but I think that this is really important as an overall framework. And then we'll just address a few of the specifics.

Yeah, we're going to go specifics.

Yeah, we'll go to the specifics here in just a second. We're actually going to click on some common ones that people bring up. Is this a common analogy? If people have never seen this, it's usually used for something different, but I have a jar here. If you're not watching on YouTube or Spotify Video or something, I've got a jar here and it looks like it's mainly sand, but actually at the core of this are some really big rocks, some small pebbles, and then I filled in sand and it all fits in there together. If you've never seen this analogy, if I took everything out and I put the sand and the pebbles in first, the big rocks would not be able to fit in.

That's right.

But because I put the big rocks in first, followed by the smaller pebbles, followed by the sand, it all could fit in there. Here's why I'm saying this, is that oftentimes people want to focus on these small places where there seems to be, again, where there just seems to be disagreement. And they don't focus on the big areas where they all agree. And what interests me is that sometimes even just taking a piece and saying like, we'll take such a small minor place where it seems like they disagree, or I've got here a pebble over here. We'll take something like we'll get to in a minute. Like, hey, why does the Book of John put the cleansing of the temple first where the other gospels put it later and almost towards the end of his ministry? We'll take this. And basically we've got these other huge rocks, things that the Bible agreed on and that there's great plausibility around, things like the resurrection of Jesus. And we'll say, well, hey— That's a big one. Because I can't explain this one little pebble. Well, then I guess I have to drop this big rock. And this is silly.

Mistake.

I would just say, hey, if you're a believer and we'll— and at the end, I want to follow up on this and say, hey, if you're actually interacting with a skeptic, what can you do? I want to give you— I hate to say ammunition because it's not a fight, but I'm going to give you just some tools for your tool belt. Here's what I'd say is, hey, you can still hold onto all the places where scripture unanimously agrees as you're wrestling with some places where it seems to disagree. You don't have to abandon your faith that has been time-tested and true for something that is really small. comparison. Does that make sense, Carlos?

That's a good word, Paul. And man, say that last line one more time, because honestly it was really important. Say it one more time.

You do not have to abandon your faith that is based on the big places of scripture where everyone agrees and has been time-tested and is true for something that is small and that is a little bit unexplained and that you can't explain.

That has been time-tested and true. You're not the— if you're wrestling with a specific issue right now and you're listening to this, listen, you're not the first person to wrestle Exactly.

And it's like, am I— I mean, I'll get specific again. Am I really going to throw away my belief? And I'm holding up here a rock, if people can't— if they're not watching, a big rock. Am I really going to hold, like, throw away my belief in the resurrection of Jesus because, um, oh, in one account it says there was one demoniac, another account says 2? Am I really going to throw all that away for this?

So I also want to highlight, man, the reason I want to go back to it, because you were getting fired up here and we were kind of joking about it, but I do want to emphasize, Paul, and I, I know you— I know this is true about you— the reason you're getting so fired up is not because you're just trying to win an argument.

No.

But because what you believe about the Bible, your ideas, they have consequences.

Yes.

And I say this out of experience because here in just a second I might share a little bit of what— a little bit of a faith crisis I had like over 10 years ago regarding the, uh, what I believe about what scripture is and and what it was not, because I was listening to some of the voices out there as a young, recently graduated student that were telling me things that, like you said, oh, like, oh, hear me out. I just discovered this one little detail that nobody told you about, but now I'm giving you this information. And guess what? You should throw away all your faith because of it. And guess what? Like, if you believe those lies, yeah, it'll mess your life. Like, it'll wreck your life.

Yeah.

It matters what you believe about what is true and what is not true. And if the word of God is true, then if you don't believe that, like there's consequences to that.

Exactly. But, and I do, and I'm so glad you said that, 'cause I wanna even clarify something. I, when I got really fired up earlier, I was directing that at people who were trying to tear down the faith of others. And again, I think that's actually a good righteous anger that should be directed. And sometimes we have to call people out that are doing that. And again, we see the examples in scripture. I don't want people to think if you're out there and you have honest questions that you can't Ask those questions. No, no. Like if anyone who's ever approached me with a question like that, I generally— oh yeah, well, let's walk through this. So I just want to make sure and double-click on that. 'Cause I even like—

Bro, I get every single, every single weekend in the lobby, literally I get people come to me with a bunch of questions and it's so much fun.

And so if you're out there and you see stuff, don't think like we're saying you can't ask questions. No, what we're— I was directing that towards people who are trying to tear others down. What we're actually saying is, 'cause let me put it in a way that's a classic set way, and then let's get to some of the specific contradictions, is that what you need to have as a Christian is the idea of unity. you can have faith seeking understanding. You can say, hey, I'm going to hold onto the big things of scripture that are obviously true. Then I'm going to hold on that are time-tested and true. And hey, if there's something I don't understand, I don't have to throw away my faith because of these small little things. I can hold onto my faith while I'm seeking plausible explanations for the things that I cannot explain. That's what we're saying is like saying, hey, don't throw out everything that is time-tested and true for the things that I can't explain, especially if they're really small.

So here's what we're going to do right now. We're going to go through 5 different types of quote-unquote Bible contradictions. And these are different categories, and we're going to help you think through some of these. We're going to go through specific examples. We're going to react to a video from our friend Alex O'Connor. It's going to be really fun. And so Paul, go ahead. Number 1, what's the first one?

Yeah, oftentimes what you'll see, especially in the Old Testament, is numerical contradictions. So you'll have one account of one event that says this amount, and then another account will say this amount, or one says, hey, they were this old, another one says they were this old.

Yep.

And so again, this is mainly in the Old Testament. Like one of the classic examples, it is 2 Samuel 24:9 versus 1 Chronicles 21:5, giving different census figures. So in 2 Samuel, it says, Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to the king. In Israel, there were 800,000 valiant men. That's a key phrase I want to come back to, who drew the sword. In 1 Chronicles, it says, and Joab gave the sum of the numbering of the people to David. In all Israel, there were 1,100,000 men who drew the sword. One says 800,000, one says 1,100,000. That seems like an obvious contradiction. So let me say something in general about how to approach this. A couple of general pointers. Number one, you have to remember when we say the Bible does not err, we said in the original manuscripts. So not in this case actually, but in many cases where there is a numerical difference, oftentimes it's because there's differences in manuscripts. And again, when you're reading the Bible, it'll usually take a note, but that's also where getting a good resource like that book I mentioned earlier is really helpful to you.

Yeah.

Because it'll kind of, it'll let you know, hey, When is it because there's different variations? And here's what I tell people, it's like, hey, that shouldn't throw you off.

Yeah. And why would you find some variations? Because people literally were like, handwrote the copies.

Yeah. And in places where this is happening, and I'm talking about census figures. Here's where we don't have variations. For example, in the New Testament, Jesus rose from the grave. Oh, then there's another manuscript. He didn't rise from the grave. Usually this is over really minute stuff of numerical figures and things like that, which is happening. In this case, this is actually not what's happening. Instead, let me give just a simple plausible explanation for how you could approach this. Well, in one passage in 2 Samuel, it said that he gave the numbering and it was 800,000 valiant men, or that word in Hebrew can mean mighty men, battle-tested men, people who had seen combat.

Hmm.

Where the other one, it doesn't use that phrase. It just talks about in all Israel, there were 1,100,000 men. So a very plausible explanation is that in 2 Samuel, he's saying, these are the battle-tested men who have seen combat. And 1 Chronicles is saying, these are all the eligible people who can fight. not just 800,000, but another 300,000 men who have been eligible to fight, but haven't seen combat yet. Classic analogy is like in the second Lord of the Rings, there's a battle scene where they are facing an enemy and you had some soldiers that had seen combat and were battle-tested, but they're so outnumbered that eventually they described pretty much any boy who can hold a spear or sword and draft him in. So let's say there were 400 soldiers in that battle in Lord of the Rings who'd seen combat, and then there was 200 boys that were added into it just that they needed all hands on deck.

Yeah.

It's accurate to say that there were 400 soldiers at that battle and that there were 600 men or males at the battle. Both can be true. Hey, Live Free Nation, let's have fun with this and swing some elections. In all seriousness, midterm elections are obviously coming up in November. In the state of Texas, there's an estimated 16 million Christians, and the midterm elections coming up in November will be decided by a predicted, actually, about 300,000 votes. So what this means is if Christians do their job as salt and light in the world, good things really easily happen. So what we've done at Live Free Nation is we actually built a website to help mobilize Christians to do our job as salt and light in society. So you can simply text the word vote to the number 20411, text the word vote to 20411, and we have built a website all at our own expense to help Christians remember to vote leading up into the midterms, because the number one reason that Christians don't vote, especially in midterm elections, is they just forgot. So with one text, VOTE, to 20411, you will get one text which is a link to the website where you can put in your address.

Uh, we do not keep any of the information, and it will tell you where the polling location is for voting in your area, uh, when to come, and what in your area you need to bring. Again, we keep absolutely none of the data and we will send you that text. And then only one other reminder text right before midterms. So let's have some fun with this. Text VOTE to 20411, and we'll see what Live Free Nation can do.

That's a great example. So first category is numerical contradictions. Category number 2 would be historical/factual contradictions. And this would be more so the, quote unquote, the contradiction that says, well, you said that it happened this way. And somebody else said that that event happened a different way, same event, but then different details. So a perfect example is this video of Alex O'Connor. Again, he's an English YouTuber and podcaster, uh, Bright Thinker. Appreciate the question that he's been asking recently. So we're going to react to this video. Let's go ahead and play it. We begin with the birth narratives. There are 2 narratives in the Gospels, in Matthew and Luke. Both give different accounts. Okay, stop, stop right there, Jason. Okay, so Alex says, uh, 2 birth narratives, both give different accounts. So let me just rephrase, uh, what he just said. Here's what I would say. Um, both Matthew and Luke tell the same birth story, but they very different details. Now that's true. Um, and to your point, Paul, again, they both say that Mary is Jesus's mother. They both say that Joseph is the father. They both say that Mary was a virgin, that Mary conceived of the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

Again, this is the same story, but they emphasize very different details. Now, why would they emphasize different details? So a couple of things we can— this is a big conversation. Let me just give it to you quick. They have different audiences. So Matthew speaks primarily to Jewish people. Um, Luke is a gospel primarily spoken to a more universal audience. Um, also as with every biography, This is just how it works. You cannot include every single detail of everything that happened in somebody's life. Um, so the biographer will choose what to highlight and what not to highlight. That's what's going on here. Um, so different details and aspects of the events are emphasized, but like you said, different does not mean contradictory.

No.

There is no place where Matthew explicitly says X happened, and then here comes Luke, and then he says X did not happen. Again, different does not mean contradictory. Let's keep, let's keep watching.

The genealogy of Jesus, for example, but the genealogies are different, but more importantly—

Okay, stop right there. So he said the genealogies are different, which by the way is true. Different gospel writers means different audiences means different purposes for the genealogies, which means that there are some differences when you compare both genealogies. Now, this is probably the, quote unquote, the trickiest example of the differences in the genealogy. So Matthew says Joseph, the father of Jesus, is the son of Jacob. Luke, on the other hand, says Joseph is the son of Heli. Eli, or Eli?

Yeah, I think Eli. Eli.

Okay. Luke says Joseph is the son of Eli. So which one is it? Is it Jacob or Eli? So let me start here. Uh, one, like you said, man, there's— this is not a new discovery.

No.

Um, Christians have been talking about this for literally for 2,000 years. There are potential explanations by early Christians of what could be going on here, um, from like 100 to 200 years after the events of the New Testament happened. One possible explanation, it is possible that Joseph, the father of Jesus, had a biological father and another father in the legal/genealogical sense. And this is what we see in Deuteronomy chapter 25. It speaks about what people call a levirate marriage.

That's right.

Which says that if brothers are living together and one of them dies without a son, the wife of the other brother should marry the brother, and then, uh, the firstborn son will carry the name of the brother that had died. So that particular son would have a biological father and another father in a legal genealogical sense. And by the way, this is an explanation given by Julius Africanus, who was an early Christian scholar and historian that lived in AD 200.

Wait, wait, you mean so we're not just discovering this contradiction? AD 200, man. Okay, okay. Um, and by the way, sorry, my sarcasm.

When he explained why he— this is what happened is he said, man, this is— I got this from Jesus's family. That's literally what he said. So way early, nothing new. Here's another explanation. Matthew's purpose in giving the genealogy is not to give us ancestry.com, is to trace Jesus back to the lineage of King David. So what he does is, and you'll see this in the, in his genealogy, he skips some generations.

By the way, very common in genealogies at this time. Like, they were not trying to give a step-by-step thing. Instead, they would emphasize different people for different reasons. I just wanted to point that out to people.

And so when you see him saying this is the son of somebody, it doesn't necessarily mean that that's an immediate biological son. It could just mean descendant. Um, this is, and we know this because Matthew chapter 1, verse 1 says Jesus is the son of David. Um, we know that Jesus is not literally the biological son of David, and then he's the son of Abraham. We also know that Jesus is not literally the biological son of Abraham. It's a descendant.

That's right.

And there's more, but you get the point. Let's keep going. Let's keep going.

Matthew then says that, uh, the family traveled to Nazareth, and he says, so was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he shall be called a Nazarene, quoting the prophets.

Now notice, if you read an online Bible, that where the Old Testament prophets are quoted, there's a little footnote Telling you what the prophet—

what the prophecy is.

In this case, you won't find one because the prophecy simply doesn't exist. It's not there. There's no such thing. So there are 2 options here. Either Matthew made up this prophecy or got it wrong, in which case the New Testament is mistaken, or the prophecy does exist but for some reason fell out of our scriptural tradition and now no longer exists, which makes the accuracy and at least the completeness Okay, great. Okay.

Yeah.

Um, or there's a third option or perhaps more options.

Um, not just 2, you know, this is what some people always like to frame the data in only his way.

Good old false dilemma, either/or fallacy.

Exactly.

Um, or there's a third option. Um, so here's what's interesting. When you read Matthew, I'm actually reading Matthew in my personal time. So there's like, I think it's like 9 other specific prophecies that Matthew specifically quotes and says, hey, this has been fulfilled by Jesus every, and every time he does so, So he says the prophet, then he names the specific prophet, and then he cites the actual prophecy. Now here in Matthew 2:23, he does not say the prophet. He says the prophets in plural. So he's not quoting a specific prophecy. Instead, he's nodding to something that the prophets in plural have collectively expected or anticipated for the Messiah.

That's right.

And what would that— what was that? Matthew was saying that Jesus would come from a place like Nazareth, which was a place that was not impressive. It was obscure, lowly, despised. And even if you remember, Nathanael said Nazareth, like, what, what good, what, what good can come from Nazareth? Or can anything good come from this place? Which means the Messiah would be someone that is lowly, obscure, not impressive, and he would be despised and rejected. Did the prophets, in plural, say that? Yes, they did. Isaiah 53, he was despised and rejected. Psalm 22, I am a man scorned by everyone, despised by the people. Zechariah 9, your king comes lowly and riding on a donkey. Lowly, obscure, not impressive, rejected. Can anything good come from Nazareth. And in addition to that, there's another prophecy in Isaiah 11:1. Uh, this is what it says: there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. So basically saying that David's dynasty is like this chopped-down tree, like a stump, and from that stump a branch will come out. The word branch in Hebrew is the word netzer.

Hmm.

And so some people think that Matthew might be doing a little Hebrew play on words here by saying, hey, uh, from the stump of David, there would be a branch, a netzer. Jesus is the branch. Jesus is the Nazarene, Netzer, Nazarene. Again, um, that, that some people say, man, this is what could be going on. The whole point is when you find something in scripture that you don't fully understand it, it doesn't automatically mean that it's a contradiction. Maybe it just means that you need to keep asking good questions and keep digging a little deeper.

And I love that you pointed out, again, we mentioned earlier that so many of these are, are really built on logical fallacies. And I love that you point out specifically, this is the logical fallacy, fallacy of the false dilemma. You think, oh, there's only 2 options. There can't be anything besides. the 2 that I put forth. It's a classic fallacy. I just wanted to highlight that. I want to highlight a couple other things I think is important to begin even connecting some dots to some different things we said. And then we'll move to the 3rd category, which is probably one of the hardest categories, one of the hardest examples. And I guess I get to take that one. Thank you, Carlos.

You're welcome.

But I want to first quote, I think Wes Huff, who said this, is that the Bible was written for us, but it was not written to us. It's a key distinction. What that means is, as I told you earlier, how God's word was written in a timely way to the people that he addressed it to, but also in a timeless way that we can get things and he's still speaking to us today.

Yeah.

But it was not written to us. And we need to understand that it was written in the genre and in the styles of, in the case of the Gospels, first century, first century ancient world. And then if you're on the Old Testament, even older. And so here's what we often do, especially skeptics, is we'll bring 21st century standards of historical chronology and history books and biographies. And we'll say, hey, if the Gospels are going to be accurate, they have to abide by the same style, even though they were written 2,000 years before our time. This was often called chronological snobbery.

Yeah.

That's what C.S. Lewis once called this, in addition to some other things. And so we've got to remember that, hey, the Bible is conveying truth on its terms and in the style that the first century— again, when we're talking about the New Testament, first century authors wrote it and God was communicating through them and through their styles. And so, for example, in ancient biographies, there is this common technique called compression, or they would omit certain things because to your point, they were wanting to focus on those things. So if you go and you actually read the post-birth narratives, it's like, well, hey, Why is it that in one they go to Egypt, but in the other they don't? It feels like they're going to different places. Because to your point, they're highlighting different things. There's a very common practice. In fact, I'm going to highlight another one here with our next one. I just want to double-click on that and help connect that for people.

Differences, not contradictions.

Exactly. Exactly. All right. So our third category are chronological contradictions. These are places where it says, hey, especially now thinking about the Gospels, hey, it seems like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John put this event here. I mean, sorry, Matthew, Mark, and Luke put this here, but John puts it elsewhere. So 2 big examples, and even beginning to connect some other dots, like some things that we'll throw out are like little grains of sand, pretty easily explainable. These next 2 are kind of like decent-sized pebbles. These are some of the harder ones. And so because of that, they do require some more careful explanations.

Okay.

So, and some more careful nuance. It may take just a few more minutes than we've been doing. We've been going through these pretty fast. So 2 big ones. One is that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus cleanses the temple. He turns over the tables. This happens at the end of those Gospels, right before Jesus is put to death and then is resurrected. In John, it happens at the beginning. So, people look at this and say, well, wait, this is contradicting each other.

Yeah.

The first 3 said that it happened at the end. John is saying it happened at the beginning. So, 2 very plausible explanations for these. I actually don't think this one is as hard as people make it out to be. One plausible explanation is that he does it twice. After all, he fed the multitudes multiple times. Even in the same Gospel, you'll have him feeding the 5,000 and the 4,000. 4,000. He heals the lame multiple times, the blind multiple times. He teaches often the same material multiple times. So therefore, it would be logical to say, hey, maybe he did it twice, once at the beginning of his ministry, once at the end, kind of as bookends.

Right.

So, that's a very plausible one, although I actually hold more to the second one, that is this: in ancient biographies, it was very common for people to rearrange material chronologically to make a point thematically. This really throws us off as 21st century people. Our thought is, is, hey, history, the way that biography has to work is it's this, and then this, and then this. That is not the way they thought. In fact, Michael Lacona has written a great book called Why Are There Differences in the Gospels? where he examines ancient biographies, specifically Plutarch, and shows how even in Plutarch's own work, he will often rearrange material.

Interesting.

He'll leave out details, sometimes of the same story in different settings, because he's wanting to emphasize different things. So, one very plausible that I actually think is probably a little bit more likely than the first option I put forth is John puts that story first to emphasize something thematically. But if you actually go and read the reading, there's nothing in the reading of the story that says, oh, he went to the temple and then immediately after that he did this.

He did this first.

So, then he's rearranging to make a point or to kind of create some narrative tension or structure. I mean, we actually still see some of this today. There are some biographies that move some stuff around chronologically because they're trying to focus on themes of a person's life. But then also I thought about Mission: Impossible III.

Come on, man. I'm a fan.

If you haven't seen Mission: Impossible III, great movie.

Shout out to Tom Cruise.

It's a great movie.

Tom Cruise, if you're listening to this—

We love you, man.

Man, we're big fans.

And we all want to know what you and Taylor Swift were talking about at the game on Monday night. I don't know if you saw that this week on social media.

Oh no, man. I was reading my Bible.

You're so much holier than me. Anyways. That's a joke. Anyways, so at the beginning of the movie, it actually at the beginning begins at the end. It shows a scene of something that actually happens chronologically at the end, but he does it to introduce something and then he goes back to the beginning. So it's like, even I think we get a sense of this, that oftentimes when people are telling a story, they'll take something and start from the end, put at the beginning. But that doesn't mean that when they're making Mission: Impossible III, they're like, oh, they got this out of order. They're trying to make a point.

What's your name?

Huh?

Ethan. Where's the rabbit's foot? Uh, do you know who you're talking to right now? I, I'm gonna hurt her so bad.

I really, I really, I do.

Ethan, Ethan, don't do it! Ethan, Ethan!

I really hope someone doesn't go like, they don't accidentally click this part in the podcast. They're like, what is wrong with Carlos right now?

That's a good scene. Ethan, don't do Ethan, I know who you are.

That's just an example of like, I keep bringing this back. That's an example of something that might feel foreign to us, but that's where I've got to remember, hey, the Bible was written for me, but it wasn't written to me. I can't bring my expectations of what I think how it should be done to first-century people and how they wrote at that time. Yeah.

Basically learn how to read an ancient document.

Yeah. In its terms, according to the way its style is done. Okay. Here's a big one. And I would actually say this is probably one of the the top 2 most difficult ones, is that there seems to be a contradiction on the day that Jesus was crucified. So, in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they all say that Jesus celebrated a Passover Seder, the Passover meal with the lamb and everything, on Thursday night. And then, so that would've been Passover on Thursday night, and then that he died on Friday. John makes it seem like that, that Passover meal has not happened before Jesus died.

Huh, okay.

Where you see this specifically is on John 18:28. He says, this: the Jewish leaders would not enter Pilate's headquarters so they would not be defiled, but could eat the Passover. John 19:14 also calls the day of Jesus's trial the day of preparation for the Passover. So people see that and they say, well, wait a second. If Jesus died on the day of the preparation, like one is saying he died on the day of the Passover, the other is saying that he died the day after.

Which one says that he died on the day of Passover?

The day of Passover would be John. Would be John. And so it's like, well, hey, there's no way around this. This is an obvious contradiction. So I think I think 2 of the best plausible ones, I lean more one towards the other. One is to say, this is another example of John changing the chronology. They would say, hey, John really uses rich symbolism throughout his Gospel. And right here, he's picking up on something that he had mentioned earlier in the Gospel where John the Baptist says, behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And so John here, we got to remember John was the last Gospel.

Yeah.

So Matthew, Mark, and Luke were already out there. And so when people are reading John, they're not going to read this and say, oh, he got it wrong. Instead, we're going to think, hey, what point is John to make here? Oh, he is having Jesus being slaughtered at the same time as the Passover lambs. John seems to be making the point that Jesus is the new lamb. He is the one who was slain.

Behold the Lamb.

Yeah, behold the Lamb. So, that is a possible thing. I think it's plausible. I'm just gonna be honest. I wrestle with that one. That's one that if that were the case, when I got to heaven, I'd be like, hey God, like, I trust you, but can you explain to me how like, this seems like John is deluding deliberately saying something that didn't happen in history to make a point? Can you explain how I can hold these things together? But I say it that way to say, again, I'm not God. I'm not going to tell him how he should have written it. But sure.

Sure.

I personally wrestle with that one. Here's a different explanation. Here's a different explanation, is that they actually both agree, but it really comes down to what do these words mean? 2 big things stand out. Number one is the idea that when they would say Passover, that didn't just mean that meal and that specific day on Thursday. Passover was a larger term that could represent not just one day or one meal, but all the festival days around it. So for example, in Luke 22:1, it says, now the Feast of Unleavened Bread— guess when that started?

Passover.

Thursday night of Passover. And then it continued another 7 days.

Interesting.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread drew near, which is called the Passover. So right there, Passover is not just referring to one specific meal. It's a wider timeframe. It's responding to a wider timeframe.

Interesting.

And to a wider And so, there's other places that kind of— it's like right there we would say, so when the religious leaders say, hey, we got to eat the Passover, or we don't want to be ceremonially unclean, the idea here is that they had already celebrated the Passover Seder the night before. They're going to another feast, so what some people would call the Haggadah. They're going to that on Friday night. So, it's the same thing, but they would've said, hey, it's the Passover, because they refer to that as the collective celebration, not just of the Passover Seder, but all the days around it.

Interesting.

A second thing that people point out, yeah, you had the thing where it says, well, it's the day of preparation for the Passover. That word preparation is parouskue. It had become a standard designation for Friday, the preparation for the Sabbath day. In fact, you actually get this in John itself. A few verses after you get this seemingly troubling phrase, it says, since it was the day of preparation, and so the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, they took his body down. A few verses later, John 19:42, it says, because the Jewish day of preparation, and it is speaking of the Sabbath. So right there, we would say, hey, this isn't saying that it was preparation for the Passover meal. Instead, what this is saying is, hey, this is the Sabbath day on Passover week. I think this can be a very plausible explanation. But again, what I just gave you there, I'll be honest, this is one of the harder ones. There's some nuance to it. But what we're basically saying is, hey, there were 2 plausible explanations for this, why this doesn't have to be a contradiction. At the end of the day, on this side of heaven, we're not going to know which is which.

But again, just to remind people, just because something isn't ultimately explainable— I mean, just because something is left unexplained doesn't mean it's ultimately unexplainable. There's some plausible things out there.

So numerical, historical, factual, chronological, and now we got theological contradictions is number 4. So, okay, so now we're talking about what we believe, our theology, the study of God. That's what theology means. So this right here is probably the most misunderstood apparent contradiction in the whole Bible, in my opinion. Check this out. So let me just read the Bible. Romans 3:28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. James 2:24, you see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.

It can't be both, bro. Obvious contradiction.

On one end you got Paul saying, hey, we're justified by faith. apart from works. On the other hand, we have James saying, actually, we're justified by works, not faith alone. Paul, so which one is it? A couple of things. Number one, when you read the context of each book— one, there's, they're different books, by the way. Yeah. Um, when you read the context of each book, Paul and James are answering 2 different questions. Paul, in the book of Romans, he's answering the question, hey, how does a sinner become right with God? And Paul Paul says, I'm gonna tell you how you're justified by faith apart from works. He says this again in Ephesians chapter 2. He says, for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. By the way, this is good news.

Hmm.

We are not saved by works. We're saved by putting our trust in Jesus. James, on the other hand, is not answering that question. He's answering a question. He's answering, what does genuine saving faith actually look like?

Yeah.

And what he is doing is he's confronting— if you read the context, he's confronting somebody who's claiming to have faith, but their life shows no evidence of it.

Yep.

So this is why you see in James chapter 2, he says, what good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith actually save him? The quote-unquote faith that James is talking about here seems to be a faith that's more of an intellectual assent. And this is why in in verse 19, he says, hey, you believe that God is one and you do well, but even the demons believe and they shudder. So on one end you have Paul, and Paul is talking to the guy that basically says, hey, I can earn my salvation because of what I do. And Paul says, no, you cannot. You are a sinner who just turned your back on God. It is by faith alone that you are saved. And then James is talking to the guy that says, on the other hand, man, I believe in God and I can do whatever I want with my life. And he says, no, you cannot. Even demons believe in God, and that doesn't that they're actually saved. Now, what people will do, Paul, is they will caricaturize Paul as the faith guy and James as the works guy.

But if you— again, if you keep reading, if you don't grab isolated verses out of context, you keep reading Paul, you will find that Paul never teaches that works don't matter. In Ephesians chapter 2, this is really interesting. In Ephesians chapter 2, literally a verse after Paul says that we are saved by faith and not as a result of works in verse 8 and 9. If you read verse 10, it says, for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works. Which means, here's what it means. We are saved. We are saved by faith alone. We are not saved by faith that is alone.

That's right.

If you have an authentic faith, if you have a relationship with Jesus, if you have put your trust in Jesus, it will show. Like, people will be able to see it in your And so both James and Paul, they are agreeing. That's not a contradiction. And somebody might be hearing this and be like, well, yeah, but one is literally saying justified by faith. And the other one is using that same word justified by works. Here's what you need to know. In scripture, the word justified can actually be used in 2 different senses or 2 different ways, depending on the context. Again, context matters. The first way it can be used is it can be used as a legal term to be declared innocent. That's the way Paul uses it.

Yeah.

To be declared righteous, to be justified before God, just as if you've never sinned.

Hmm.

The second way, it can also be used to refer to someone being shown to be right, proven right, or vindicated. So when Paul says justified by faith, he's using it in the sense of being, uh, having a legal, uh, declaration of being innocent before God, because he's answering the question, how can you be saved? How can you be righteous before God? When James uses this word justified by works, he's talking about somebody claiming claiming to have faith but not having works. So when he says, so you are justified by works, what he means is you are proven right, you are vindicated in what you're saying, you're demonstrating that your claim is right by the works that you do.

That's right.

We see the same usage in Luke 10:29. There's a lawyer talking to Jesus, and the lawyer says, but the lawyer, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, and who is my neighbor? What the lawyer is not doing here He's not trying to be declared innocent before God. He's trying to justify his own claim. He's trying to vindicate his position. He's trying to say that he is right, to prove that what he's saying is correct. Again, that's why he says he wants to justify himself. And so that's what James is saying. Hey, if you want to prove that you are saved, if you want to justify your claim that you have faith, you got to show me your works. And so here's the point: no contradiction between Paul and James. Works are not how you get saved. They're That you have been saved.

Classic example of sometimes people will take things out of context. Again, just another example of how so many of the supposed contradictions are based on logical fallacies or bad interpretation. A good rule of interpretation is you have to interpret in context. What is this author trying to say to this audience? And what does he mean by this word? Because you basically are pointing out is that we can use the same words, but have a range of meaning by them. And it can look contradictory, but if you're asking, what are they communicating to this audience? And what do they mean by this word? It actually does not have to contradict. It can be complementary, not contradictory.

Context matters.

That's exactly right. Context matters. Last one.

Last one.

This is a fast one. This is a fast one because I really don't think this is hard. So a lot of the things that we've been talking about are called internal errors, things that were within the Bible that seem to contradict each other. This is an example of an external contradiction or an external error. Something outside of the Bible seems to or contradict with something that's inside of the Bible. And that is, is if you have a scientific contradiction, like saying, hey, the Bible says something that seems to contradict what we know is true in the scientific or natural world. So a classic one is that it says, hey, if you read the Bible, it seems to say that the sun rotates around the earth.

Hmm.

Ecclesiastes 1:5, the sun rises and the sun goes down and hastens to the place where it rises. In Psalm 19:4-6, the sun is pictured as leaving his tent and running its course across the heavens. Around Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, 1 Chronicles 16:30, the world is talking about— our world is talking about being established and that it cannot move. And so someone reads it and says, see, they thought that it actually— the sun rotates around the earth and the earth is fixed. Obviously, the Bible has an error and it contradicts what we know is true from nature. This is a classic example of going back to what we talked about when we talked about inerrancy. Inerrancy means that there are no errors in the original manuscripts and in what the Bible intends to communicate. So, if the Bible is intending to communicate right here, a scientific proclamation that the sun rotates around the earth, yeah, Houston, we got a problem. Houston, we got a problem. But if that's not what it's doing, if it's using something called phenomenological language, which is a fancy way of simply saying it's describing things the way they appear to the naked eye, then there is no contradiction whatsoever.

But Paul, so somebody listening to this and be like, well, what then? Why does it say, like, if it's the word of God, why would it say that the sun was rising or that the sun stopped? Like, why not just say what actually is?

Yeah. So here's what I would say is if someone is asking that question right now, I want them to pull out their phone. Carlos, you can, if you want to, but you don't have to. I would say, hey, pull out your phone and I want you to go to your weather app. Or if you don't have the weather app app or whatever your weather thing is, and I want you to go and I want you to look up when it says that the sun is going to appear in the morning and disappear at night. And what does it say there? It calls it sunrise and sunset. So do the meteorologists at Weather App and all of our meteorologists on these news stations, people who are trained professionals, do they believe that the sun is actually rotating around the Earth, or is it simply a shorthand way of describing what it appears? And it's much easier to say than saying, well, you know, the Earth is rotating around the sun at this angle and this time of day.

Nobody says that.

It's just a shorthand way of saying it. So what I'm saying is, if we can use phenomenal language, phenomenological language, and not be confused or contradict what we know is true of science, the biblical authors can do the exact same thing.

Bro, that's really good.

Okay.

So numerical, historical or factual, chronological, theological, scientific, or natural world contradictions.

That's right.

So Pastor Paul Cunningham, great. So there are ways we've learned a lot, man. Why does it even matter? Why are we even having this conversation?

It's good. A few pastoral thoughts. Really a lot of this that I'm going to say And I'd love to hear what you have to say. It's really reiterating things that we've been saying over and over again throughout all this. Part of this is going back to what we talked about at the beginning is if we believe that this book, the Word of God, is inspired by the author of the universe and spoken by the Word, meant by the author of the universe, and it has power to save our lives and to change our lives, man, then we want to have confidence in it.

Mm-hmm.

We want to have confidence in it. This is one of those things that both we want to stand under the Word and stand under its authority and live the life it is telling us to live and believe in things it's telling us to believe, but also something that we want to be able to stand upon. Not literally, don't stand on your Bible, but something that we want to base our lives on and build our lives on as a firm foundation for our lives. And with that, then we want to have confidence in it because it will change how we live and it'll change the world that we live in if we begin to live as if it is true, because it actually is true.

Yeah.

So some of this is just wanting to undergird people's confidence in being able to stand under the authority of God's word and to be able to stand on the firm foundation of God's word.

Yeah.

A couple other things that I would say is this, is that, man, I hope what we've just noted is saying it over and over again is to say, hey, there's plausible explanation for these. We didn't even cover nearly all of them, but I hope you can see there's plausible explanations for them. So here's what I would tell people to focus on if you encounter these. Go back to this, focus on where the Bible does completely agree. If you're still struggling with this, struggle, focus on that. And then here's one last little thought. Thing. This is more of a tactic. Let's say a tactic if you're talking to someone who's a skeptic. This is not if you're watching the video. We hit a lot of those and saying, hey, don't be thrown off by those. You can have confidence in God's word. But here's a tactic if you're actually talking to someone who's throwing these things at you. I've gotten to the point where I make a deal with them. I say, okay, listen, man, I would love to give you a plausible explanation for this, but you have to agree that you will give me a plausible explanation for something else.

And like, what? And I'll say the resurrection. Because I'll say, hey, if you go back to the early church in the book of Acts, they actually didn't go around saying you should believe in Jesus because we have an inspired, infallible Bible that you must believe in. Although, by the way, I still believe that. Instead, what they went around saying was, hey, there is a man named Jesus who went around doing miracles and he was crucified and raised. And so you should believe in him. He is the Messiah, the Son of God. And so I would just say this. say, listen, all atheist historians would believe on it, would agree with a few basic facts around the resurrection, that there was a man named Jesus who was crucified, that there was an empty tomb, that the earliest disciples believed they had met the risen Jesus, that Jesus's own brother James believed that he was resurrected and believed in him as a Savior.

Amen.

And that there was a name who, there's a guy named the Apostle Paul, who at first went around persecuting Christians and put them to death, but then claimed that he saw and met the risen Jesus. And because of that, put his faith in Jesus and then went around telling people about Jesus and eventually was killed for the very faith he eventually, at first, was persecuting other people for. What is the most plausible, simple explanation of all those facts that all atheists would agree on?

Mm-hmm.

It's the resurrection. And so in other words, like, I don't want people, I don't want Christians to think we're only the ones who have to give the answers to these issues. I would say, hey, if you're talking to someone, just say this, man, I would love to address this potential contradiction in the Bible, but I want you to address what all the gospels unanimously agree on. Let's not focus just on what they potentially disagree on, although we probably don't. Let's focus on what they agree on. And can you give me a plausible explanation that is better than the simple fact that there is a resurrected Savior who would love to save you and have a relationship with you?

That's great, bro. So after graduating college over 10+ years, 15+, 14, 15+ years ago, contradiction, just kidding. Uh, I had a little bit of a personal crisis of faith because I remember I started reading a lot, uh, more than ever in my life because I was, uh, doing social media videos on, on the Bible and theology. And, uh, in my— and I have a little bit in me that like I, I enjoy listening to somebody that disagrees with me because it, it stretches me and it pushes me.

Hmm.

But then I was reading so much that as I'm reading some of these books, I'm like, Oh, but what about that? That's a good point. And all these voices saying, man, watch out for what voices you're letting in your heart and in your mind. 'Cause those voices are shaping you in one way or another. And then it made me doubt some things. And again, it's not wrong to ask questions. It's not wrong to doubt, man.

Yeah.

I'm sure we're hearing, we have a lot of people listening right now that are probably wrestling with a couple questions. That's fine. My mistake that it made it much more difficult for me to figure it out was that I was isolated. Um, most of the people that I know that have gone through some sort of faith crisis, or they're questioning their beliefs about the Bible or Christianity, are people— ultimately, there's a little bit of a root issue underneath, and that's just like, you're isolated. You do not have community around you of people that actually, like, they can handle the questions, but then they can also handle you not being 100% on some issues when it And so again, isolation is dangerous, man. So if you're listening to this and you're wrestling with a couple things, this is why it matters. Because you need people around you that love you, that they say, hey, come, come down together. Let's start together. Let's bring me your questions. Let's go hang out. You need mature Christians that have also wrestled with some of the things that you are wrestling now. Again, you're not the only one. Whenever you wrestle with some of these things, you feel like you're the And I can't believe it.

There's a crisis. And what if this is all a lie and God doesn't even exist? Hey, the church is full of senior saints, full of people that have been there, done that, that love you. You should— you were not meant to follow Jesus and wrestle with these doubts in isolation.

That's right.

So I would say, one, it's important to have the community. And number 2, here's why it matters. Because Paul, when you have confidence that this word is true, man, it changes everything. changes, it will change your life.

Yeah.

Uh, the Bible is not just to receive information, it is to experience transformation. You're not supposed to just be informed, you're supposed to be formed. Um, man, that is so true. And you need to have utmost confidence today. This is what Paul tells Timothy. You have to have confidence that this word is true. Uh, let me show you something that, um, this right here is amazing. Like, I cannot believe even to this day I had the opportunity to, to see this with my own eyes. So this photo right here is a photo of the Isaiah Scroll. It's an ancient scroll of Isaiah, uh, in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. And this right there is the oldest surviving complete copy of the Book of Isaiah ever discovered. So that right there, uh, we were able to go there in person. We, we, we, we saw it. It was found in a cave in Qumran, uh, which we were at as well.

Mm-hmm.

And it was found alongside other 22 manuscripts, uh, most which were just fragments and 1947. It is, uh, 24 feet long, and it is 2,100 years old, and it was copied more than 100 years before the birth of Jesus.

Hmm.

So if you think about this, we have a scroll here that is older than Jesus. Like, Jesus would have actually used the Bible this way with a manuscript. And that right there has all 66 chapters of Isaiah, 2,000-year-old document that we have, uh, and, and by the way, when you read it, which obviously you can, it's the same book. Like, you— your Bible is that book right there. Now hold that thought. Recently I found this, uh, online evangelist named Jeff Morgan who is a Messianic Jew, and, uh, which means he is a Jewish believer in Jesus. And what he does is he, he goes to the streets, uh, in Israel and he does evangelism with Israelis. And what he'll do is he'll be like, say, hey guys, come here. And you know, these— you got a young group of men, and he says— he, he grabs the document and he says, I'm going to read the Bible to you, and what I want you to do is when I read it, after I read it, you tell me if you think this is New Testament or Old Testament. And so what he'll do is he'll go to a section in scripture, and he'll go and he'll, he'll read this.

He'll say, surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, and yet we considered him punished by God, stricken him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, and he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Hmm.

For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. And so he'll finish reading, he'll look at these men and he'll be like, you tell me, is this New Testament or Old Testament? And they're all like, oh man, definitely New Testament. Uh, what do you, what do you think he's talking about? Oh, no doubt. Like, that's Jesus right there. These are all Jewish people, by the way.

Yeah.

They're hearing these words. Oh, definitely New Testament. And, and then, uh, he will say, exactly. Uh, it, it sounds like he's talking about Jesus, right? And then he'll say, guess what? That's the Old Testament.

Mm-hmm.

And then he reveals he's reading from the book of Isaiah. That's the same book. And here's the point. What Isaiah says does not sound like Jesus because somehow people manipulated the text. And at some point they went back and make it fit into Jesus, or the text has been edited. Like, we know that's not true. That's a 2,000-year-old document. This is our Bible. It's the same book. We have a copy of Isaiah that dates over 100 years before Jesus was even born. We know Isaiah was written 700 ish years before Jesus fulfilled every word. How could that be? I'll tell you how that's possible. This is the word of God.

Yes.

It was written by men, but it was authored by God. And listen, everything that God says is true. Everything that God says happened would happen. And if it hasn't happened yet, it will happen. And listen, if this is true, if this is really the word of God, then you can trust every single word, Every single promise for your life, it is true. You can trust it. And that will change your life. That just will change absolutely everything, man. And so, um, this is why it matters. This is why it's important. The word of God is true. The gospel is true. You can trust your life on it.

Love it, man. Pastor Carlos, you don't usually get a chance to do this, but I would love to ask you, would you pray for us?

I would love to pray for us right now. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much because, uh, man, it's good news that right now we have a word that is true. The Bible says that your word, Lord, is like a sword. It's also like a hammer. Father, I pray that as we, uh, study it, um, may it not just be for information, but it really may it be for a transformation of the soul. Lord, I pray, uh, thank you because your word does not return void. Uh, Lord, I pray that it may change people's lives. I pray that right now even you may awaken a hunger to study more, to go deeper, to, to consume the word of God, to be filled with the word of God, to renew our minds with the word of God, that we may live lives that are witnesses. And it's just evidence that you are a good and faithful God. Father, may we be light in the middle of darkness. May we be bold in proclaiming your word. And may we find joy as we study it, as we read it, as we meditate on it, and as we live it out.

We thank you for your word. Thank you for this podcast.

Amen.

And we pray this in your name, Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Amen.

Live free.

Live free, brother.