I'd like to welcome everybody to clergy talk podcast. The world wants to know and all the glory goes to God. On today's episode, I have a pastor James Seffet. Yep. Seffet on the show and he's been pastoring. How long have you been pastoring sir? Uh, I've been in ministry for 14 years. Um, been serving in ministry in Idaho and North Carolina, and, uh, been a senior pastor for about a year and a half now. So youth pastor before that. And, uh, now I'm, I'm a lead pastor role. Well, congratulations on that. With that being said, I'm going to turn it over to pastor. Take it away. All right. Well, Hey, we're excited to be here today. Uh, you reached out to me, Michael reached out to me, uh, a couple of months back about doing some talk on the Canon and scripture and where we're at. And he'd sent me a couple of questions. And so I've been doing some research and looking through it and, uh, just talking through what the Canon is and why we have scripture and, uh, what, why there's books out there, sort of the lost books that people talk about. and how we can sort of navigate through that. So I wanna basically just start out by maybe talking about the canon and is it closed and what that looks like. Some people may have not even thought about or heard about this word, the canon. And it's just, the canon is really just how we have scripture, how we've come throughout the history of having the 66 books that we have in our Bible. And I take the process of believing that yes, the canon is closed, I believe the Bible warns us against adding and taking away from God's word. In Revelation, also in Deuteronomy, the Old Testament canon was affirmed by Jesus. He quoted the Old Testament. The apostles quoted the Old Testament. And the New Testament was completed by the end of the first century. So since the apostles were the ones that were entrusted and told, hey, you're going to go and you're going to deliver the kingdom of heaven to the people. Uh, they were delivering the revelation of God. Uh, the Bible says in Ephesians two 20, that they were there to deliver that. Um, and I, I don't believe that there's any apostolic authority that exists today. So therefore there's no more books that can be added to the 66 books that we have, um, and the final revelation that we have in scripture. Um, so it's sort of the first part, Michael, what's your thoughts on that? Where, what are you, what are you thinking on those things? Oh, I agree 100 percent, because only a true apostle has the authority to write scripture. So we know who the true apostles are. And, you know, a lot of these books that start floating around start floating around after the death of the original apostles. Oh, the last time we had this show, we had they were talking about some books were divine authority put in place by God. than the other books were a probably a lesser authority, which may have historical value, but are not God agreed. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, that's, that's sort of where we get to sort of the, as we evolve this conversation of how do we choose what books got go into the new Testament, what books go into the old Testament. And that's, that's where we can begin to dissect. Okay. How do we get to this point? Um, right. Judas wrote a book, uh, these other apostles, these other disciples of Jesus wrote books. Why are they not there? Uh, why didn't they get included in the canonicity of scripture? Um, and there's, uh, not necessarily there's, uh, they were arbitrary based on certain things, but there were some criterias that the early church used. And, uh, I wrote down four of them, the four basic ones. The first one is the apostolic authority. Was it written by an apostle or someone closely connected to an apostle? Mark, Luke, Peter, right? Peter, Mark was with Peter. Luke was with Paul. He spent time with him. He wrote these things. He was there with them. So Mark and Luke weren't apostles, but they were so close that they were sort of the, the secretary for the apostle. They were the person that's writing down these things as he's telling them what's going on. So there was the authority of the apostles that was there with him. The second thing we've got to look at and that what the early church looked at was the doctrinal consistency. Was this book, did it align with the rest of scripture? and was it aligning with the teaching of Jesus? And so this is where they had to really begin to say, okay, is there things in this book that are teaching or talking, or maybe it's just a historical book that maybe doesn't really align with what we're looking at in scripture. And so they were using this as a doctrinal scale, you could say. The other one, number three, was the universal acceptance. Okay. This was, was it widely accepted and used by the early church? So we can tell if they're used because they're quoted all throughout the councils that were happening in those early church moments and what was being passed around, what was being given, what was being used, what was being used to build the church up at that time as they're going through it. And then there's the divine inspiration. Did it bear the marks of God's inspired word? Second Timothy three 16. Did it give these things? And so the early church. Affirmed these books because they were already recognized as inspiration. No later books met this criteria. Correct. Correct. Correct. So that's basically how I was taught. So that's the basic understanding of that. And, uh, really gets to, you know, when you begin to even think through that is, is the old Testament and the old Testament, it was, uh, established and confirmed. No one really has a lot of pushback with the old Testament. Back with the New Testament, because it's newer. And then in a little bit, we're going to talk about the Apocrypha and the Book of Enoch. It's causing some controversy right now. I think we can spend a lot of time on that, and we will. But there are these so-called lost books of the Bible. And the question is, are these lost books, are they God-breathed? So for instance, the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Judas, are they inspired scriptures? Are these writings used for that purpose? And so one of the things that goes back to it is these specific books, the Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Judas, were actually produced at a much later date. They were produced in the, between the second and fourth century. So they were after the apostles died. We don't know if they were actually the Thomas that was the doubting Thomas, because it was so much later. It could have just been another Thomas that wrote some things down, or Judas as well. And so these were there and they were after. And the big part of it, you ready for this? The big part is they contain a lot of false doctrine. They denied Jesus's bodily resurrection. There are heretical teaching and it contradicts the rest of scripture. And so if these books are contradicting the books that we have established in the church as early as we can get to the first and second century, we're using these books and these newer books are going against that. Well, then that goes against the doctrinal consistency that we're looking for. Um, the other thing we can see is they were rejected by the first and early church, right? Right. These, these other books, not Thomas and Judas, because there's were later, but there were other books that were trying to be used. Other letters that were being used in the church said, no, these are not beneficial to you. These things need to be beneficial to you. These are the eyewitnesses accounts of what is going on And there was the the the promise that Jesus said that his word would endure Matthew 24 35 it says that his word would endure there would not be a lost book that would come to being because God's Word is sure it is foundational is firm Uh, why would there be some lost book that, that scripture just magically came up and 2000 years later, we found a new book that was not a part of that. Um, you know, I don't believe that was what Jesus was calling for. Uh, which sort of leads us to, because if you, uh, follow church history, if you follow. Things that go along there. There's, there was the council, I believe it was in the sixth century of the Apocrypha, uh, where, where the Catholic church took the stands of, we're going to allow the Apocrypha to be in there. And then the Protestant church said, no, we're not going to allow it. And then it came back up when Martin Luther and, and there was this controversy of what about the Apocrypha? What about these? Yeah. in-between times, these in-between talks of books that are there that can help and can encourage. And what do we do with those books? If one set of churches believe it and others don't, and some people say, well, the Catholic church added to the canon of scripture, they added it to 76 or 77. Well, then other ones say, well, that was what it was supposed to be, and the Protestant church took away books, which is right. Did someone take away books? Did someone add books? Where can we begin to talk through this? In my understanding of the Apocrypha and where we're at, and we'll give some historical stuff here as well, I believe the Apocrypha can be used for historical insight, It shouldn't be treated as scripture, right? The Apocrypha, it was never a part of the Jewish canon. So the Jewish canon for the Old Testament did not include the Apocrypha. It was something that was added later. We know that by Romans 3, 2. It was never quoted as authoritative by Jesus or the apostles. So a lot of the apostles, and I think if I remember my statistic correct, it's like 60% of the New Testament is a direct quotation of the Old Testament. And never once did any of the apocryphal books get quoted. And so we began to see some of those things. And then one of the big ones for me is the doctrinal errors that contain in the Apocrypha. So for instance, the one instance that I'm gonna pull out is the praying for the dead in the second Maccabees 1246. says we should pray for the dead. The Bible doesn't tell us that. The Bible says that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And we're not praying for the dead. There's nothing to pray for. They're in the presence of the Lord. And so that is a huge doctrinal error that is there. You know in here's the date 1546 I had a wrote down later the official declaration of scripture by the Roman Catholic happened in 1546 when they established that the apocrypha was going to be a part of their canon This is 1500 years after the disciples is after Jesus It's it is a long period after this where now they're adding this in there in this back into it And I believe that there is some historical value, um, but, but it's not God breathed and it shouldn't be used as doctrine, uh, to back up that second Timothy three, 16, 17. So thoughts on that, Michael, and then we'll get into some other things here. I'm on the same page that you are on. Um, I know when I read the Bible, the 66 books of the Bible, I can feel connection with the Holy spirit. I feel that it's walking me through it, and I'm getting my eyes open. When I'm reading the Apocrypha, it's like, I'm relying on my own intellect to figure this out. And there's a big difference between being taught by the Holy Spirit, reading the books that are given by God, and that he has a signature on, versus books that aren't given by God. And that's a big difference. And I think when you have discernment, you have a tendency to realize I'm reading something that is inspired by God, you know, put in place by God versus I'm reading something that I kind of got my doubts on this one, you know, so it's like, I don't, I don't understand everything in the Bible, but I know it's God breed. Yeah, absolutely. And that's where it is so vital that we are as close to scripture as we can and everything we do. Um, the, the, the sort of the last thought that I had was, um, and you can ask any other questions after this was sort of the book of Enoch, because that is. The study that is the one that is most intriguing, a part of the apocrypha that, uh, people will pull that book out and say, well, there's some things in here that help us out. There's some things in here that are good. And when, when I say the book of Enoch, I'm talking about the first book, there's actually three books in the book of Enoch. Um, and so the first book is, is the one that we're looking at the other two. I, I know, I believe that those are, are as far away from scripture as possible. But when we're talking about that is we're talking about the first book and it has some ancient parts that go back to about the 2nd century BC Some fragments were even found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. And so they were there with Those those ones that were translating and preserving scripture. So we know that and But the big part of this is, um, it's a hodgepodge of parts are ancient. The, you know, there's books that are the book of the watcher or the book of the giants. Right. Other sections were written much, much later. Um, even. contemporaries with the New Testament times, and they were sort of compiled together. And so there's this hodgepodge of so many different authors that are bringing this book together that you have to say, what is the historical interest And how is it helping us understand these things, but also understanding that I believe it's not scripture, but it's there to help us understand the times. And so, which brings us to the second thought of who wrote the book of Enoch, right? Who was the author of the book of Enoch? Enoch is mentioned a couple of times in scripture. I don't believe there's any serious evidence that Enoch himself, the great grandfather of Noah, actually wrote this book. And here's some reasons. The Jewish historian Josephus said that no authoritative books were written before Moses, which means the book of Enoch would not have been preserved without massive early notice, which it doesn't have, right? It's not there. If it was written before the flood, it would have been brought on the flood, and it would have been a huge historical document of saying, this is something that was telling us about the anti-Diluvian states before the flood happened. And we don't have that. We don't have it written. We don't have it talked about. We don't have anything there. Another interesting statement that is used, and not a lot of people know this, is Enoch is considered pseudographical, which means it was written at a date or late and named after a famous figure. to sort of give it authority. And another thing that you can see as you begin to look through it is it mentions Mount Sinai in the book of Enoch. Well, Mount Sinai was not named Mount Sinai until Abraham was on that mountain when he received the 10 commandments. So if Enoch is naming Mount Sinai before the flood happens, How is Mount Sinai named? It wasn't named yet. It wasn't given its name until the time of Abraham. And so if he's naming it before that, then there is contradiction in just the simple naming of geographical things that would not have been named or given a name to yet. Um, and so that, that, that one right there, you know, you begin to look and you begin to see that, that there's no way that Enoch of the great grandfather of Noah would have been able to write this and, and had those names and have some of those things there. And so some people will ask, well, why wasn't it included in the Canon? Uh, why is it part of the Apocrypha books? Um, the, the couple of things here, the early Jews who were. If you study the early Jews and you study the Old Testament, they were extremely careful about scripture. I mean, when the scribes were writing scripture and they got to the word Jehovah, they would strip their clothes, they would go and take a bath, they would get completely clean, they would come back and write the name Jehovah, and then they would go and do that same ceremony again before they wrote anything else. So they didn't accept this book and they were so concerned and so knowledgeable of what scripture was and what it wasn't that they didn't treat it as inspired. So why would we bring it in and say, well, we probably know better than they do. You know, they were so much more careful about these things than we are. The early church, the early Christians, they didn't accept it as canonicity. They, even some found it that it was interesting or helpful historically, but they never took it as a serious book. And only a very, very small group, which is the largest Christian group in Africa, which is the Ethiopian church. That is the only. Church in the world that actually accepts this book into their Canon. So it's an outlier of the broadened history of the Christianity and Judaism. It's a book that's there, but it's only been ever accepted by one church and one group of people. and all the rest haven't accepted it. And so therefore we can sort of take that and say, okay, what is scripture? How can we get through that? Some will say, well, Pastor James, I was reading through this and I began to see some things. And I had a young guy that actually asked me this just the other day in church. He said, why don't we use the book of Enoch? Jude quotes the book of Enoch. I thought, well, that's a good question, man. Let me look at that. Let me think through that. Let me process it. So Jude 14 and 15 appears to quote or allude to the first book of Enoch when it's giving the sons of angels and the sons of God and the sons of men, when it's talking about that. And However, I don't believe it's quoted. I think it's referring to an event that happened in scripture. It happened in Genesis six and it happened this small little portion of time where it talks about the sons of God and the sons of man. intermingling in the Nephilim spirits that are coming through that. It's just an obscure quote that's in Genesis 6, and Jude references it, but then the book of Enoch gives some expounding of what is going on, the historical of what's happening in this. And so as we look through that, and we're not gonna go into a lot of detail of that, but it's there and sort of a history of what could have been going on in this time. What would have been understood to the people when Moses was writing Genesis six and he said, the sons of God and the sons of men were intermingling and creating the giants of Nephilim. And then it was like, no one ever talked about it because it was already known in that time. Right. It was something that would have been like, uh, the, the, the Philadelphia Eagles won the Superbowl and we didn't talk about it because everyone knew that they won this last year. It, we wouldn't have talked about how that would happen in the history. It would have just been a moment of, we're talking about it because everyone in the culture knew. And so that's why it wasn't expounded on, but the book of Enoch expounds on it. So it could help us understand some things. Um, the, the pushback that I would give as I began studying this is, um, as we look through scripture, Paul quotes in act 1728 and also in Titus one 12, the Greek poets and the pagan hymns. He actually has some quotation in scripture that the Greeks would use. So if we're going to go and we're going to say that Jude quotes the book of first Enoch and it should be scripture, does that mean that the Greek poets and the pagan hymns should also be scripture? If Paul's going to quote them, and Paul is an apostle, and Paul was the leader of the first church, and he's quoting normal modern day stuff of their time, and we're going to say if it's quoted in Scripture it should be a part of Scripture, well that means that the Greek poets and the Greek pagan hymns should also be a part of Scripture. And yet everyone that would have two brain cells rub together would say, no, we're not gonna bring those into scripture. It was just referring to something that was going on in that time to make the culture understand what was going on. And so we understand they're not inspired by scripture. Jude is using a well-known cultural reference to make a theological point. He's not endorsing the book, he's not saying it's God-breathed, he's saying, hey, this is something that you guys know about, you guys have read about, you're first century Jews, you've read through these things, you know they're there. Let's take this in as a theological debate and talk through that for just a moment. Some problems with the Book of Enoch that I've experienced is some passages in the Book of Enoch are theologically problematic. They're hard to get through theologically. An example is in Enoch 71, Enoch calls himself the son of man. That title, the son of man, is only assigned to one person and one person only, and that is Jesus. In the Bible, in Daniel 7 and Mark 14, Jesus is referred to as the son of man. And yet, in Enoch 71, Enoch is saying that he is the son of man. And so that's a huge theological debate because he's claiming divinity through Jesus Christ that only he had. So that's heretical. That's heretical to what we believe. And he's saying that he has this divine role to human beings that is someone other than Christ. And so we would see that as a huge theological argument and debate as we look through that. So as I look through and I study through this, my overall evaluation, my overall thought of the Book of Enoch. The Book of Enoch is ancient. It's interesting. If you've never read it, it's something that can be helpful to understand what a second temple Jew would have thought about angels and demons and even Genesis six. It gives some context, some historical evidence to it, but it's not divinely inspired. and Christians can read it for historical backgrounds, but we should not treat it as scripture as we do the authority of the Bible and what the Bible says is true. And so there's those historical books out there, right? Josephus, he writes, I mean, he was there and he was documenting things that were going on in history during the time of Jesus that we can use as historical Joseph Flavius. If you've never read his works of the wars, the Jewish wars, he actually documents and actually talks to and talks about this man named Jesus who was walking on earth. And he wasn't a disciple. He was just recording history as it goes through that. And he was a first century Jew that was there. Um, and so we would use that as historical evidence and we wouldn't use that as scripture just cause it talks about him, but it backs up a lot of what is going on. Um, and so that, um, one of the, the cool thing I went to Israel back in 21. Looking to take a trip back in 25 and, uh, got to go to the Holy lands and talk through a lot of those places. But our guide, he said, you know, the, the town of Magdala where Mary Magdalene was from, uh, was a lost town. We, we knew it was somewhere. We knew that it was there. Because Mary Magdalene's from there. It was a huge economic city. And Joseph Flavius talks about how there were ships that came to the shore. So we knew it was on the sea there in the Sea of Galilee. Ships came and it was like fire from heaven was destroying the city. And the city was gone. And so they haven't been able to find it. They recently, in the last 20 years, have uncovered the city, found the city, the town of Magdala. It was one of the most impactful places that I went to. Wow. Because it was so, after the battle had happened and after the war had happened and it sort of just got covered up, they uncovered the temple that was there in Magdala and had the original tile work done. And they found one of three of the scroll seats where they would unroll the scrolls in the temple and the priest would come in and read from the scripture scrolls. And so this amazing artifact, one of them was discovered in there intact. And so there's only three of them that have ever been found. And it gives us a model. Joseph Lavius talks about the city of Magdalene in his books in the Jewish wars. He talks about how there was a temple there and how the Bible says that Jesus went from temple to temple and was teaching and expounding scripture in all the temples around the Sea of Galilee. So as we're standing there, I'm like, dude, Jesus was inside this temple. Jesus was inside here. He was sitting at this scroll. He would have opened up a scroll here. And man, that was one of the most impactful places I went to. The scripture doesn't talk about the town of Magdala. But we know that it's in the region of Galilee and Jesus went to all these regions. And then we've got this historical book of Joseph Flavius. So, so this is where these other books can come in and they can help add validity. They can come and help add historical context and help us to understand what's going on in that culture of a first century Jew. Exactly, exactly. Well, uh, Redock is one of those books that I've tried to read a couple of times. I think I got to a couple of pages and I go, oh. Everybody says, Mike, have you read the book of Enoch? I go, I've tried a couple of times. Then he goes, it fills in a lot of the missing blanks that we don't have in scripture. So here's the issue. We know that there were giants, according to the book of Genesis. We know there was a flood. And we know that David, as a youth, Blake Goliath was a giant. The question is, how does it all tie in? OK, and that's one of the issues that a lot of people are trying to figure this out, because there was a flood. I believe the flood was globally global. I believe it was a global flood. Yeah. Some some people don't. Some people do. But I believe it was global. So if the flood was global and it was, then we know all the giants got wiped out. So the question is now, where did David come? Where did Goliath come from? Was he just a hybrid person? Or what's going on here? So I don't really think the Bible actually gives us that information. But I believe that David was a giant. Now, I don't think he was 500 feet tall, though. Right, right. He might have been maybe 12. I'll give him 20 feet at the most, maybe, give or take, give or take. And then of course, all the other stuff that they said that the Enoch claim were being done, kind of like out there. I think somebody's imagination just start running wild when they go, hey, let's put this in there. So, but we know Enoch was taken up because he was a righteous man. So if he was taken up and then the book of Enoch didn't appear till maybe a century later, that's a big problem within itself. So, yeah. So historically speaking, I always make this argument. Number one, we have Amazon, so there's no lost books. Right. Right. You can get any book you want. I will tell someone, yeah, go ahead, read, read the apocryphal, but I will never teach from the apocryphal. Yeah. OK. I read the apocryphal. I read I think was first and second Maccabees. I read that. I think Ezra, too, is in there. A couple of other books are in there, but. But I will say that I'm a big sucker for the Gospel of Polycarp. I kind of like reading that when I. I just enjoy reading because I know Polycarp was a direct student of of John St. John. So and traditionally speaking, we know he was burned at the stake. We know he didn't burn up and we know There was an issue with him being executed by the Roman government. We know that they want him just denounce Jesus so you can live because you're an old guy and you're okay. But he wouldn't do it. He's like, you know, I'm up in age now. God's been good to me all this time. Why should I denounce him now? So I kind of lean towards the gospel of polycarp, but I still wouldn't teach from it in a sermon. Oh, absolutely not, yeah. And those just help back up the history of these apostles and these believers in that first century, what they went through in the trials and tribulations they went through and how they didn't lose their faith, and how they didn't denounce the gospel. They stood firm on what they believed, even in the face of persecution. And it gives us a good context of what was going on when Peter is writing and saying, Paul Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ. He's you look at the history. He's literally writing his death warrant because Nero said I'm gonna my goal was to destroy every Christian out there So for him to say that and polycarp as well, you can see those things it is it's giving us the history in the the background of of what's going on in the culture and the time of where it's at, because of these historical documents that we have that we should use. We should use as an understanding of what's going on, not use it as a sermon, like you said, don't preach from it, but use it as an understanding of, hey, this is someone that was there at the time of Paul, that was there at the time of Peter, who's writing about his experience, about what he went through, and it helps us understand the broader context of what's going on in the culture at the time. Exactly, exactly. And you know, it's strange how the tide turns around. Well, according to the so-called intellectuals, a hundred years ago, nobody rejected that Jesus Christ existed. Okay. Everybody knew he existed. Now people are saying, well, did he really exist? Come on now, you know, and let's say a hundred years ago, maybe less or more, Any historian they want to keep his reputation intact will say, yes, there was a Jesus from Nazareth. Now, whether you believe he's the son of God or God incarnated, you know, that's a different story. But you cannot denounce that he did not exist. Yeah. But now they're saying, well, he didn't even exist. Now they're saying, well, the New Testament was all made up. But when you when you look at the external evidence that supports the New Testament, from let's say historians that don't even believe the Bible, but they're saying, let's take a look at the Bible and see how this lines with what we found. And what we find has been documented by other historians that we can trace back to that time. I know there were a lot of major historians because the Greeks, they like writing information down. They would go in and capture a country and they would end up taking everything they got in their library and translate it back into Greek. So it would be a widespread of knowledge. So, yeah, that's what they say about the Greeks. They have a lot of records. They are useful to establish the external information and even to kind of prove that, hey, this book is actually legitimate, because, number one, when you look at all the manuscripts, they basically all say the same thing. People say, well, have you read the Greek? I would say, well, what Greek do we read it in? What Greek are we talking about? Because it's a bunch of different Greek manuscripts. So, yeah. So I think when it comes to the canon, I agree with you 100 percent. We had the 66 books that are God break the other books. They're not as the same level of authority that the 66 books are. Mm hmm. Are they useful? Some of them are, but you got to be very careful before you start saying, I read this book from the Apocrypha and this is what happened in. Because if a thinker, somebody who's trying to figure out, is there a God, does he exist? And one minute he's studying Islam, next minute he's studying Buddha, now he's in Hinduism, then he goes, let me check out Christianity. And he gets a hold of the Gospel of Thomas, it's going to throw a monkey wrench in his machine. Yeah, absolutely. For me, when I've learned, even in my preaching, I'll say, according to history or according to a scholar that I read after, and I'll quote something. And I may not give the exact quotation in my sermon. I've got it documented in my notes. And so afterwards, if I've got a kid that comes up to me and says, hey, where did you get that from? I want to do some more research. Well, I actually read it in, you know, in the book of Enoch or in the book, in one of the apocryphal books, I use it as history. I don't use it as scripture, or it could be, you know, John MacArthur or John Piper, a guy that's a theologian today that I read it after. I just didn't quote it because it took away from the message that I was trying to preach. And so later, yeah, I'll tell you where the quotation was from, but it gives, you know, it gives backup to what I'm saying. And then I've got the documentation as well to help. Help someone but it doesn't cause confusion in that moment, right? Jesus says be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, right? Yeah use what we've got to be wise but don't cause harm and in Confusion of someone as well. So right right exactly. So right now I'm taking my small group Bible study through Genesis and we are about to jump in to the part where the Moabites and the Ammonites came into being through incest and all that. But I have a tendency of always telling people. Now, here is a hypothesis that I have. You can reject it because it's not the battle, which is what I think might have happened. But we have to stick with the biblical data. You know, a lot of people have different views about what they think might have happened on certain situations, like the age of the earth. We did a topic on the age of the earth not too long ago, and you got a couple of different schools of thought. You got the young earth, the old earth, the I don't know earth. The guy made the earth, and I'm good with that. I don't need to know how long it is. So you have different perspectives, and the Bible doesn't say, he who believes that the earth is 6,000 years old will be saved. It don't say that. Nor the other view. It only says that Paul named the Lord Jesus Christ, he will be saved. That's for every tribe in the universe. But then again, when we look at some of the apocryphal books and other books that are floating around out there, they kind of like open up a lot of doors that shouldn't be open because when you go through the door, there's nothing in there. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. Passing it back to you, Pastor James. When you when you start walking a person through the Bible, He was a new believer, because a new believer is usually on fire. They're on fire. And then I can say for myself, when I was a new believer, I was on fire. I knew it was everything true. I didn't change overnight. I didn't fix myself. I didn't get stuff together to a long, long time in the road. I didn't actually start doing deep study till I was 31. I got saved when I was 15. So that's 16 years on down the road. So when a new believer comes into your church and gets saved or get baptized through your church and everything, And they started asking all these questions about all these different books. How do you handle that? Yeah. As far as like the apocryphal lost books, things like that. How do you handle my basic go-to is these are there as historical documents. Uh, they can educate them, but right now let's get founded on what we know is scripture. Uh, and I challenge them, read and study the book of John first. There you go. Go through the book of John, take your time. Don't read through it and try to get through it in a week. Take your time, read through the teachings of Jesus, read through the, the apostle of John and how he's writing through the love that Christ had the, the world, how they're after the Christians. And if they are coming after you, it's because they've went after Christ first. If they hated you, they hated Christ. They're going to hate us as well. Don't think you're going to walk in and everyone's going to love you. Um, and then I tell them when you get to about chapter 13, 14, really slow down, really take your time, read a couple of verses and think about it. This is Jesus's last teaching to his disciples. A couple of years ago, I went through, uh, just, it was an abiding me study and we just walked through, I think it was like 15 or 16 weeks where we just walked through that whole discord, that final discord that Jesus gave to his disciples leading up to the crucifixion. the resurrection of Jesus and how he's walking through a couple of passage and then Thomas would ask a question. He walks through a little bit more and Peter asks a question. He walks through a little more and another disciple asks a question. And I was telling our teenagers one time when I was walking through this, I said, imagine you're sitting there and the guy that you followed for the last three and a half years is telling you he's about to die. He's gonna go away. Do you think they'd been anxious? Do you think they'd have been questioning what's going on? Why do we do this? Jesus handled that anxiety with care. Jesus cares about that. The disciples asked questions. The disciples were questioning. And so I tell them, take your time, walk through, listen to what Jesus is saying. If we're a part of the vine, we're going to grow. If we're not, you're going to be cast out. Exactly. He walks through this. There's the denial of Peter. There's the crucifixion of Jesus, the resurrection, and the teaching of the disciples for those 40 days after, and him being shown to hundreds of people. So you begin to walk through that, and you begin to allow the book of John and really those last couple of passages to really begin to see the heart of Jesus, begin to see the heart of the people, and begin to see the church's formation coming through that. Exactly, exactly. I think people fail to realize that the apostles, in a way, they're just like us. How much of the stuff could they really process? Like when Jesus walks on the water, how do you mentally process somebody walking on the water? You know, I mean, we read it all the time, and a lot of us may not think a lot about it, but when you're a pastor, you got to go a little bit deeper and start trying to look at the eyes of the look through the eyes of the original recipients, of course, but how much could they actually process? So when Jesus brought Lazarus back from the dead, how much of that did they really process? It's like, I would be sitting there going like this all day long, probably three or four days trying to figure this mess out. What did I just see? I know me, I'm a deep thinker. I start thinking about, I'll think about something five, six, seven days sometimes and maybe still not come up with the conclusion I'm looking for. Well, and you see that there are the questions that they have, the concerns that they have, and how many times through the book of John does Jesus say, I'm going to go away, I'm going to die, the temple's going to be destroyed, three days later I'm going to rebuild it. I mean, moments before the crucifixion happens. He says, I'm going to go away to prepare a play. I'm going to go. I've got to leave. I've got to be gone for a while. And Thomas says, how are we going to know where you're at if you're leaving? How are we going to find you? They're still not even comprehending, like, we know the end of the story, we know what's about to happen, but they're still not, he goes, no, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die and I'm gonna be rose again in three days. And they're like, well, how are we gonna find you? Like, they're still not even understanding. Again, the Holy Spirit at this moment, so the Holy Spirit isn't illuminating scripture to them like it does for us, but we begin to see through that, we begin to see the questions, the concerns, the doubt that happens, And we would be the exact same way if we were there. We'd be questioning. And so it's good to have those questions. It's good to have scripture show us those things, and we can grow in our relationship with the Lord. Exactly. So I think that's one of the reasons why that we as the Christian community, we need to be gentle with people who are seeking and people who are trying to figure out this whole big spectrum of Christianity because the Bible's not something you can just read through and think you got it. Sometimes you gotta read it a couple times. With that being said, do you have any closing remarks you want to give my listeners? Yeah. Uh, as far as Bible study and learning scripture, uh, it's the greatest joy of my life to stand up every week and preach and teach the word. Uh, but it's not just a moment where I get up on Sunday. This is an everyday thing where the Bible is working in my heart. The Bible is working in my life. I'm. Teaching my kids scripture. I'm teaching my we bought my my daughter a new Bible for Christmas and My wife she she failed to buy it early enough and so we had to run to Walmart because we knew we were gonna buy it for and she got a version that I'm not I preach out of the CSB and and walmart only sells like the king james the new king james or whatever and so uh she went and bought one and so it's a different version of what i'm teaching and every sunday my daughter she's nine gets frustrated because what i'm preaching is different than what's in her bible the word verbiage and she's got some dyslexia as well so so she's struggling with that and so i told my wife i said we're gonna buy her a new bible for her birthday it's gonna be the version that I'm preaching out of so that she can follow along. But it's encouraging because she wants to follow along. She's wanting to read her Bible. She's wanting to follow scripture. She's wanting to allow the scripture to penetrate her heart. And this is the attitude and the lifestyle that we should have as believers is we should be so in tune with the word that as a camp illustration is, if I were to fill this water bottle up with Mountain Dew, and I were to shake this water bottle of Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew's gonna come out. And so we are the water bottle, and what are we filling our life up with? Because eventually we're gonna be shaken, and something's gonna come out. Is the world, is our flesh gonna come out, or is the word of God gonna come out? Because it's only what you're putting in the bottle is what's gonna come out. And so I challenge people, begin to fill your life up with scripture, so that when hard times come, When a David moment comes, when David has been chased by Saul, and he's been threatened to the end of his life, and he sits in a cave alone, abandoned by all of his family, all of his friends, and he writes, blessed be the name of the Lord. And he writes how good the goodness of God is. And I'm thinking, you're getting chased. You're getting false accusations. How are you able to write down the goodness of God? Because that's all he's known as the goodness of God, because that's what he's poured into his life is the goodness of God. And so whatever we put in, we eventually come out. It's human nature, right? We know this based on basic human biology, that whatever we put in is going to eventually come out. And so the spiritual aspect is the same thing. What are we putting in our life to eventually this going to come out of our life? Amen. Well, before I let you go, I have a confession to make. the It's all right. I was raised in the same way. I was, I was born and raised in the independent fundamental Baptist movement, a small little sect of group, which was King James only I'm Southern Baptist now. And, uh, we actually have a podcast where we deal with legalism and the abuse of legalism that has hurt. Uh, the community is called the for freedom podcast. Uh, me and a friend of mine, Brett, uh, we were going through it. And we're like 180 episodes or something in and just had a great time. We did a whole, I think six or eight part series on the King James only issue, um, talking through that in the early days. And so if that can be a help to your listeners, we've done a Bible study through the book of Galatians. If anyone's interested, you can go and check out some of those things, uh, where we just walk through chapter by chapter and, uh, we deal with issues and things in the world, things in the church that people were going through. Um, so yeah, those are, those are great things. So. Outstanding. Well, with that being said, make sure you send me some links to any kind of information you want me to post up once I release this episode and everything. And Pastor James, I'm going to keep you in my prayers, your ministry, your podcast, the work you're doing for the kingdom. That's awesome. Every time I meet a warrior for Christ, I just get so excited and happy. I'm like jumping up and down and do my happy dance. But with that being said, you have a blessed day and thank you for appearing on clergy talk podcast. Perfect. Thanks, man. Appreciate you having me on. Thank you.