0:07

Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible

0:09

Time podcast . For those that

0:11

may be listening for the first time , our podcast

0:13

is an offshoot from our main platform

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, youtube . Our channel is called Coffee

0:18

and Bible Time , where our goal is

0:20

to help people delight in God's

0:22

Word and thrive in Christian

0:24

living . We also have a website

0:27

and storefront with Bible studies , prayer

0:29

journals , courses and more . I'm

0:32

Mentor M ama , and today we

0:34

are going to dispel any fears

0:37

that Christians may have regarding

0:39

doubts about their faith

0:42

or grappling with questions

0:44

surrounding their faith , such as why

0:47

isn't God answering my prayers

0:49

? Or , if God is in control

0:51

, why is there so much evil and

0:54

suffering ? Well , our guest

0:56

today , Pastor J . D . Greear ,

0:58

author of the book, " 12

1:00

Truths and a Lie Answers

1:03

to Life's Biggest Questions , will be diving

1:06

into this issue and

1:08

will give us hope as we seek

1:10

answers rooted in Scripture and practical

1:12

wisdom .

1:15

. D . Greear is the pastor of the

1:17

Summit Church in Raleigh Durham , North

1:19

Carolina . Under Pastor

1:21

J . D . 's leadership , the summit has

1:23

grown from a plateaued church of

1:25

300 to one of

1:27

over 12,000 . Pastor

1:30

J . D . has led the Summit in a bold

1:32

vision to plant 1,000

1:34

new churches by the year 2050

1:37

. Pastor Greear has authored

1:40

several books , including

1:42

Essential Christianity . What

1:44

Are you Going to Do with your Life

1:46

? Searching for Christmas and many

1:48

more ? Summit Life with

1:50

J . D . Greear is a daily half-hour

1:53

radio broadcast featuring the

1:55

teaching of Pastor J . D . and

1:57

co-hosts multiple podcasts

1:59

. Pastor J . D . completed his

2:02

PhD in theology at Southeastern

2:05

Baptist Theological Seminary . He

2:07

served as the 62nd

2:09

President of the Southern Baptist Convention

2:12

, and Pastor J . D . and

2:14

his wife Veronica are currently raising

2:17

four awesome kids

2:19

. Please welcome Pastor

2:21

Greear .

2:23

Thank you , Ellen , for having me

2:26

.

2:26

I'm so excited to have you . In fact

2:28

, I have actually been an

2:31

avid listener of your

2:34

Summit Life broadcast when

2:36

it was on Moody Radio some years ago

2:38

, and it was always

2:41

on the radio every time

2:43

I drove to my Tuesday night

2:45

Bible study . So , it was just like

2:47

a regular , you know .

2:49

That was your companion . That's good .

2:51

Yes , but I found it so

2:53

encouraging and I

2:55

just love your passion for

2:57

God's Word and I

2:59

really love the illustrations that

3:01

you use to help explain things

3:04

. So you're

3:06

an incredible pastor and

3:08

your topic here is just so

3:11

fascinating , I think , for so many people

3:14

. But I want to just start out with

3:16

, like on a personal level how have

3:18

you experienced doubt

3:20

and what questions did

3:23

that raise for you ?

3:24

Yeah , you know , I felt like several of my big spiritual

3:27

transition moments good transition

3:29

was really were kind

3:31

of attenuated by a season of doubt

3:33

. My first one was really just doubting my salvation

3:35

. Wasn't questions about God or Jesus , it was whether

3:38

or not I could know for sure that I , you

3:40

know , knew God and how I can know for sure I would go

3:42

to heaven when I died . And that's actually the first chapter

3:44

of this book , because

3:46

I found that a lot of Christians also struggle

3:49

with that . In college I went through all

3:51

kind of your series of questions that sometimes leads

3:53

people to what they call deconstruction

3:55

. Now , but just , you know , like , if

3:57

God is real , then why is the world

3:59

and the place that it is ? Are there better answers

4:02

? What I believe is

4:04

not true , simply because my parents taught

4:06

it to me . You know what are the reasons for this

4:08

and doubts , seasons

4:11

of doubt are very difficult

4:13

. They feel dark . You feel very alone . You

4:16

know Pilgrims progress John Bunyan talks

4:18

about . You know the these

4:21

like caves and dark

4:23

. You feel like you're in prison , with with

4:25

down . That's how I felt . What I've come to see

4:27

since then is that

4:29

God doubt is often when

4:31

careful how I say this , Ellen it's often divinely

4:34

instigated as an invitation

4:37

for you to go deeper in your faith . Doubt

4:39

happens when the superficialities of our

4:41

faith , what we've been spoon-fed , comes

4:44

into in the Conflict with the

4:46

realities of the world , and it's an invitation

4:49

for us to go deeper in our faith . Charles

4:51

Spurgeon always said that doubt is like a foot

4:53

that's poised to go

4:55

forwards or backwards means it is like you Pick

4:58

up your foot . You can step forward and go backward

5:00

. It's true that doubt can drive you

5:02

backwards into unbelief , but it's also true

5:04

that you'll never actually go forward until

5:06

you pick up your foot . And so

5:08

I Realize that some of the

5:10

greatest transition , spiritual

5:12

transition points , were because

5:14

God put me into a time where I had this

5:16

ants , asked some deeper questions

5:19

and pressed deeper into the heart of God than

5:21

I I'd ever been before . Most

5:23

of our Bibles , Ellen , was written by people in

5:25

a time of doubt . Just go back and read

5:27

the Psalms , read the Gospels . People

5:30

saying why , God ? I don't get it . Well , you know

5:32

, if you really is good and loving as you say you

5:34

are , why , why this ?

5:36

so the Bible is written for doubters , by

5:38

doubters , who found reasons to believe in

5:41

spite of their doubts and

5:43

Would you say , even

5:45

if you , if

5:47

you doubt but don't ask

5:50

, you kind of couldn't get stuck Right

5:52

, but but if you actually do ask

5:54

right , that leads you into this process

5:57

of seeking wisdom and yeah

5:59

, a lot of Christians are .

6:00

They're they're embarrassed about it , like

6:02

you know . So the format of the book 12

6:04

truths and a lie . The lie is Is

6:07

that the presence of doubts makes you a bad

6:09

Christian . And I found that

6:11

so many believers sit there

6:14

and they have the same questions and when I started

6:16

to verbalize them , people

6:18

came out of the woodwork like , oh

6:20

, I've had that same question for years . I thought I wouldn't allow

6:22

to ask that and you know what I

6:24

, what I've tried to lead our congregation in

6:26

and others in , is Like these

6:29

are questions that are familiar and

6:31

God actually wants you to ask them because

6:33

they are Invitations to know him in

6:36

a better and a deeper way , and

6:38

that's his invitation . He's like I can handle the question

6:40

, I can handle the doubt . Come on . What

6:42

you shouldn't do is don't ask the question and sit

6:44

there and unbelief .

6:46

Yeah , yeah . Why do you think people

6:49

are so afraid to kind

6:52

of voice their fears or

6:54

and ask good questions ?

6:56

Yeah , well , I think a lot of it for me . I don't know about other

6:58

people , but goes back to the fear of man . I

7:01

want everybody to think that I'm , you know , just got

7:03

it together and everything Jesus

7:05

said . One of the reasons that people couldn't come

7:07

to believe in him was they regarded the

7:09

opinions of others Higher than they do God's opinion

7:11

. And to admit that she struggled with doubt

7:13

. You know , you feel like all people gonna look

7:15

at me and say , oh , I didn't know , is that about him ? I mean , you

7:17

know , should he be a pastor if he has those questions

7:19

? And you just have to say you

7:22

know what ? I don't really care what other people believe , I'm

7:24

gonna be real and I won't care what God

7:26

believes . And when you're real , that's

7:28

when you really start to be able to relate to people . You

7:30

can impress people , you know , when you act

7:33

like you have it all together , but you can relate to them

7:35

. When you admit that you got the same questions , they

7:38

do ?

7:38

Yes , absolutely . That

7:41

kind of ties into something

7:43

else that I wanted to ask , which was you

7:46

know , you say in the book that you

7:49

used to get nervous About

7:51

people asking you questions that you don't

7:53

know the answer to . As a Bible study

7:55

leader , I feel the same way

7:57

. Kind of got some

7:59

coaching over the years , but how

8:03

did you work through that ?

8:06

So I determined that

8:08

I I could not guarantee

8:10

that I would never be asked a question I could not answer

8:12

, but I could guarantee that I would never be

8:14

asked a question . I couldn't come up with some kind

8:16

of answer to twice , like I

8:18

was gonna think I was gonna find out . You

8:20

like what ? What is the answer ? Now , let me

8:22

say there's a lot of things I still feel like I don't

8:25

. I can't thoroughly understand , but

8:28

I at least know here's what the Bible

8:30

does tell us about that part

8:32

of this this project started with . I

8:34

have a podcast called ask me anything

8:36

, and that actually goes back to something

8:39

I used to do with college students where I would go

8:41

to their campus and they would a

8:43

lot of the students . They pass out flyers and

8:45

give out free pizza or whatever , and it would just be a Q&A

8:47

time and I literally be

8:49

down there with a mic and 600 students

8:51

and they just come on the mic . They'd ask a question

8:53

and people would always be like , oh my goodness , like

8:55

how do you do that ? Like you know , all these smart college

8:58

students and I'm like you know they only ever ask

9:00

a variation of five different questions

9:02

. So you just got to learn the answer

9:04

to those five questions and and

9:07

because the same questions that

9:09

people ask in 21st century America

9:11

they were asking in first century

9:13

there's very little new under

9:15

the sun . I'm not saying they haven't gotten more sophisticated

9:18

, with more historical data , but but but

9:20

it's a lot of the same things . And

9:22

so I want to be a , I want to be a Witness

9:25

and I want to be an effective guide

9:27

to this generation , and that means

9:30

acknowledging where there are mysteries

9:32

and acknowledging where there's revelation . I'll

9:34

show this , Ellen , whenever I sign

9:36

a copy of the book , always in

9:38

the front cover , always write the verse Deuteronomy 29

9:40

29 . That was John

9:43

Calvin's favorite verse , and what

9:45

it says is the secret things

9:47

belong to the Lord , our God , and the things that are

9:49

revealed belong to us and our children forever

9:52

. And what that means is

9:54

that there are some secret things

9:56

out there , and for type

9:58

A people who like to be able to answer everything

10:00

, that drives them crazy . But there

10:03

are secret things , but there are also things that are

10:05

revealed , and the things that are revealed

10:07

help you Get your mind around

10:09

the things that are still secret . Sometimes

10:12

what we want is a full explanation of everything

10:14

and what we get instead is a revelation

10:16

Of who God is , and a God that

10:18

we can trust in the midst of even you

10:20

know uncertainty .

10:22

Mm-hmm . I know for me

10:24

at times when

10:26

I can't fully understand

10:29

. I often think I'm just

10:31

so glad that my God is so

10:33

much greater and bigger and powerful

10:36

that he knows all of these

10:38

things . What would be an example that

10:40

you could give our listeners on

10:42

an area where it things

10:45

are a mystery or God's

10:47

kind of silent on the topic

10:49

?

10:49

Yeah well

11:44

, um , you know , I mean probably the

11:46

. The biggest one that we wrestle with

11:48

is why do bad

11:50

things happen ? Why do I pray

11:52

for things that seem perfectly Reasonable

11:55

in the will of God and why

11:57

would God let them happen anyway ? And

12:00

you say , God , if there were ever a time where I was trying

12:02

to discern your heart and pray your will into existence

12:05

, you know , this was it , and Sometimes

12:07

you get answers . You know , sometimes God will reveal

12:09

a reason , but a lot of times

12:11

you just don't ever get

12:14

a reason . That's kind of the point of the book of Job . I

12:16

talk about him a little bit . In the book is Job

12:18

, you know , basically for 39

12:21

chapters peppers God with questions

12:23

why , why , why , why . And

12:25

when God finally shows up in chapter 40 , he

12:27

doesn't really answer . Any of what he does is

12:29

he reveals how big

12:32

he is and he reveals how wise

12:34

he is and how loving he is and

12:37

he's like in light of that , do you really , do

12:39

you really have a lot of questions ? You feel like you're , you really

12:41

want to put me in the dock , you want to take me to court ? And

12:44

he says you know , Job , what you want

12:46

is an explanation . That's not what I'm gonna

12:49

give you . What I'm gonna give you is revelation

12:51

. Can you trust

12:53

it ? My favorite definition of my favorite

12:55

definition of faith my favorite

12:57

definition of faith is my

13:00

favorite definition of faith is accepting what you cannot

13:02

understand based on what you can

13:04

understand , what I

13:06

can and Sometimes

13:10

I imagine myself in the midst of one of the worst

13:12

questions I have . I'll just under . I'll

13:14

picture Jesus walking into the room and

13:16

say , okay , there's

13:18

an answer to this . I'm not gonna tell you what it

13:20

is right now I'll get . I'll reveal it in eternity

13:22

. But here are the wounds in my

13:24

hands and my feet . You see me die

13:26

for you see me resurrect . Will you

13:28

trust me ? With unanswered questions and

13:32

and and I say , okay , I

13:34

will , because of who you are , I don't always

13:36

get explanation . What I get is revelation .

13:39

Yeah , that makes a lot of sense . Well

13:42

, in our culture

13:44

today . Tell

13:47

us why it's More

13:49

important than ever to be seeking the truth

13:51

for God's word . I know we're just in

13:54

environments where Truth

13:57

can sometimes it

14:00

feels like it's the truth or my truth

14:02

. But how do we navigate

14:05

to what the truth is in God's word

14:07

?

14:08

Yeah , part of it is learning

14:10

where you have conflated

14:12

your personal

14:15

opinions or the traditions

14:17

of your culture , unrecognized

14:20

biases and assumptions . You learn

14:22

, but separating that and what God's

14:24

word actually says . You know Some

14:27

of your listeners you may have heard of deconstruction , which

14:29

is something the younger generation you know

14:31

they're Whatever they call

14:33

this generation now , gen Z and Millennials

14:37

that they will be they're

14:39

questioning Truth

14:41

and they're deconstructing it , and we tend

14:43

to think of that as a terrible process

14:46

, and a lot of times it is . But for a lot of

14:48

people that's trying to untangle

14:50

American culture

14:52

from what the gospel actually is , and

14:54

so we've got to be humble enough to do

14:56

that and to always go back to the Scripture and say what

14:59

is what ? What is , what

15:01

is the faith that that

15:03

exists in every generation , in every culture

15:05

? What are the unchanging parts of that

15:07

faith versus the whether

15:10

it's stylistic , you know , things

15:12

we've associated with , cultural trends

15:14

or you just secondary , good

15:16

, political Implications

15:18

of our Christian worldview when , what

15:21

, where are those things and where's the truth

15:23

? So anything that drives

15:25

you back to the scriptures is ultimately a good thing

15:27

. The reformers used to say that

15:29

that the ideal for the church . They use a Latin

15:31

phrase simple referenda , always

15:34

reforming . That's an . That's something the

15:36

church aspires to . We always want to be

15:38

questioning Whether

15:40

or not what we think we believe is really based in the

15:42

Bible .

15:45

For people who have a lot

15:47

of these questions , which so

15:50

many of us do . Do you see

15:52

any type of correlation between

15:54

the better you know

15:56

, the more time you've spent in the Word

15:59

, and that

16:01

helps you learn

16:04

how to discern

16:06

these answers yourselves

16:08

?

16:09

Yeah , I mean , of course , the more you know the Word

16:12

, the more that the Holy Spirit can bring it to mind

16:14

. I mean it's . I will say that

16:16

God puts different people in the

16:18

church with different gifts . We're a

16:20

body . Nobody's supposed to be an island

16:22

. Part of our American ideal is

16:24

that everybody's this lone ranger Christian

16:27

and I don't need church and I don't need others . It's

16:29

just me and Jesus . That's just . That's

16:31

not biblical . Me and my Bible

16:33

are not enough . Me and the

16:35

body of Christ in the Bible , that's what I should

16:37

do . And so God puts people like you

16:39

into the Christian . You know

16:41

ministry , and he puts people like me and he puts

16:43

people like our pastors and our people

16:46

at our church and we should take advantage of those . And

16:49

we should be humble enough to realize

16:51

that God has not put all the gifts of the body

16:53

of Christ into us . He's put them into many other people

16:55

and we should . We should be humble enough

16:57

to listen to them .

16:59

Yeah , so true . Well

17:02

, you started to tell us a

17:04

little bit about how you came

17:06

up with these 12

17:08

different truths . Lend

17:11

us a little bit more insight as

17:13

to you know what made you decide

17:15

which questions that you

17:17

included in the book .

17:19

Yeah , it's a little bit of a compilation

17:21

of just the ones

17:23

that were kind of burning in my heart , you

17:25

know , but also which ones I feel

17:27

like I get asked the most . And then , honestly

17:30

, a poll with our Ask Me

17:32

Anything audience of what are the most

17:34

you know , what are the most frequently asked

17:36

questions that we find the most helpful , and

17:38

we just put those in a book . So it's going to range everything

17:41

from you already mentioned one

17:43

how do you know for sure that you will go to

17:45

heaven to why the good things happen

17:47

to , or bad things happen to , good people . What

17:49

about unanswered prayer ? There's

17:51

going to be questions like what ? How does a Christian

17:53

navigate politics , especially when

17:55

you know within your own family

17:58

or people who see things differently ? What's , what's

18:00

a way that there can be unity in

18:02

that ? Why do Christians struggle with sin , even

18:05

after they've been filled with the Spirit and saved ? Why

18:07

? Why is that an ongoing problem ? I know a lot

18:09

of Christians who really struggle with that . Questions

18:12

like why would God care so much about my sex

18:14

life ? You know , why is

18:16

that such a ? Why do Christians treat that like such

18:18

a thing ? Is that an overreaction by Christians

18:21

, or is that biblical wisdom ? What

18:23

does the Bible teach about gender and and

18:25

how do we navigate those things ? Those

18:28

are , that's a handful of them . That's obviously not all of them

18:30

, but but those are , are , are , are

18:32

are the ones that I find myself

18:35

answering most as a pastor , first and foremost

18:37

, and that's what I am . I'm a pastor

18:39

and I write as a pastor and I speak

18:42

as a pastor because I'm not really trying

18:44

to answer philosophical questions in

18:47

, you know , the ivory towers of Harvard as much as

18:49

I am ordinary people who are asking

18:51

these things .

18:52

Yeah , yeah , absolutely . I imagine

18:55

I would love to see

18:57

the the poll of all of the

18:59

original questions . I know it in the book you

19:01

mentioned some funny ones also

19:03

that that

19:05

didn't make the cut .

19:06

Yeah , that's right , there's God's

19:08

here for UNC , Chapel Hill or Duke , you know ?

19:10

like I don't know if I've got an opinion on that one

19:14

I love that I'm

19:16

just curious about as you

19:19

do your own , you know , sermon

19:21

preparation and things like that I

19:23

know for me using like Logos ,

19:25

like there's so many times

19:27

. Like you know , the

19:29

more you look into things , the more questions

19:32

that you have , which is which is a wonderful

19:35

thing . But I'm just curious about your experience

19:37

in asking questions

19:40

even as you're working

19:43

in the text .

19:44

Yeah , I'm always trying . Yeah , they always say your sermon sounds

19:46

like whoever you talk to that

19:48

week , which is why which is why you preach

19:51

your worst sermons when you're in seminary

19:53

, because you're arguing with a bunch of seminary students , you know

19:55

, up in the pool . But so

19:57

you know , I try to have a good

20:00

amount of my own ministries with just ordinary

20:02

people , you

20:04

know , hearing the questions they're asking , and so

20:06

that's , that is influencing

20:08

what I speak about . I'm also trying

20:11

to , you know , just have the discipline of projecting

20:14

, like what kinds of people are

20:16

in that audience . How does the

20:18

soccer mom , who is

20:20

, you know , a single parents , who

20:23

is just feels like she's , you

20:25

know , not doing a great job as mother and feels like

20:28

she's just barely keeping her head above water ? How does she

20:30

? What does she struggle with ? She's

20:32

not thinking , necessarily , you

20:34

know , the same things that a college

20:36

student . How does she struggle with faith

20:38

? I try to always

20:41

take these messages and I send

20:43

them out to . It's probably about a dozen people

20:45

on our staff and I'm like

20:47

, you know , where are the people that

20:49

you're interacting with , what are the questions

20:51

they're going to have , and weaving

20:54

those into the explanation of the text , because if we're not

20:56

answering questions that people

20:58

are asking , then you know we're . We're talking

21:01

to people who aren't listening , and the best way to

21:03

have somebody listen is to ask a

21:05

question . They say yes , that's what I want

21:08

to know .

21:09

Yes , yes , ooh , I love that . Well

21:12

, I imagine

21:15

this book like I'm envisioning this

21:17

book like I wish I really

21:19

would have had it when I was a small group leader

21:21

, because , you're right , all those questions

21:23

even come up in that context as well

21:26

. But who did you write the

21:28

book for , and what

21:30

are you hoping that your readers are going to take

21:32

away ?

21:33

Yeah , that's good . Well , you know , Ellen , you could start teaching

21:35

a small group again . You know , maybe this is your motivation

21:38

to start doing that

21:40

.

21:41

So I've got all the answers right

21:43

here .

21:48

Lightning is going to strike if I leave too much in on

21:50

that one . But so , yeah

21:52

, you know I wrote it honestly . First and foremost

21:55

is always for our church . Martin

21:57

Luther the reformer said this years

21:59

ago . He said , you know , he said never

22:01

aspire to teach the church at large . God

22:04

doesn't call anyone to do that . Aspire

22:06

to teach your church . So these

22:08

questions came out of the context of a local

22:10

church . But that church is filled with people

22:12

, probably like the ones in your audience you know from

22:14

, from whether

22:17

it's a single mom or whether it's , you know , a

22:19

married couple , a newly married couple to somebody

22:21

, that's retired , college students . You know there

22:24

are questions that are reflected

22:26

in all of them . So , first for our church , but then , secondarily

22:29

, for that audience . God has given

22:31

our church real ministry with

22:33

college students and young professionals and it's

22:35

not like that's not 100% of our church

22:37

, but it's a significant part of it . So , yeah

22:40

, there's going to be some influence there . I'm

22:42

looking at the people in their late teens

22:44

, 20s and 30s . What kind

22:46

of questions are they asking and how do we make Christianity

22:49

understandable for them ?

22:52

That's yeah , that's so important and

22:54

I love that it started in the local church and

22:56

but you're right , it really

22:59

can definitely expands all

23:01

across the board . Well

23:04

, as we kind of wrap things

23:06

up here , my

23:09

last question is why

23:12

do you think this book

23:14

will be especially helpful ? Or you

23:16

know people really absorbing these

23:18

questions . Hopefully it makes them even

23:20

want to dig a little deeper

23:22

on their own . But why do you think it's so

23:24

important for the current climate that we're living

23:26

in ?

23:27

Yeah , because we really aren't a crisis of faith . You

23:29

know a lot of questions that we've only had superficial

23:31

answers for them , not because they weren't out there . I'm

23:34

not the first person to answer these questions , but they're

23:36

just not as accessible , and so I wanted

23:38

to be able to . You know , to use the

23:40

little cliche , I want to put the cookies

23:43

on the bottom shelf . How are

23:45

these things ? Easy . It's

23:47

not a perfect book , and I'm sure there are other questions

23:50

that listeners have that won't be reflected

23:52

in this book . It'd be impossible to have one

23:54

book with all of them , but it will

23:56

. I've yet to have somebody who picked up this book

23:58

that didn't say oh , there's several things in here that

24:00

I've wondered , and maybe I didn't . Maybe

24:03

it's somebody in my life that's asking these questions and

24:05

I want to know how to answer them A child

24:07

, a college student and

24:10

it'll give you the basics of an answer , but it'll

24:12

also teach you how to go about answers

24:15

. You know , it's like teaching you how

24:17

to like . Maybe it's not your exact

24:19

question , but oh , here's a way that

24:21

you learn to think and learn to process

24:24

things , and it'll help you with some of the questions

24:26

that may be unique to your experience

24:29

or your family .

24:31

Yes , absolutely . That's really

24:33

what I loved about it as well

24:35

. So I I definitely agree

24:38

with you there and I know , for

24:40

me personally , yes , and

24:43

you know , just like you said , even

24:45

like witnessing to your own family , like if

24:47

these are questions even they other

24:49

nonbelievers have . So

24:51

if we can help , you

24:54

know , provide some , at least

24:56

our , the Christian faith perspective

24:59

, I think that that has an opportunity really

25:01

to to hopefully penetrate

25:03

hearts where Holy Spirit's at work

25:05

, right , well

25:08

, where can people find a copy

25:10

of the book and connect

25:12

with you as well ?

25:14

Well , I'm supposed to say , wherever books are sold

25:16

, you know they should have this , but if

25:19

you , my website is probably the easiest way to

25:21

have access to all things , not just this book but other

25:23

books on you know whether we're talking the assurance of salvation

25:26

, what it means to fill with the Holy Spirit . You

25:29

know lots of books that

25:31

hopefully will serve the church . So jdgreear . com .

25:40

That's the easiest place .

25:42

Okay , good , I'm glad you spelled that , because

25:44

the first time I put it in I know I did it wrong

25:46

, but it still came up

25:48

.

25:49

So well , good , good .

25:52

Before we go , I just want to ask you some

25:54

of our favorite Bible study tool questions that

25:56

we ask on guests . What

25:59

Bible is your go to Bible

26:01

? I know you probably have hundreds of Bibles , but

26:03

what's your go to Bible ? What translation

26:06

is it ?

26:06

I use the ESV study

26:09

Bible is probably what I go to most .

26:11

Okay , that's , that's an excellent one . Okay , do

26:14

you have any favorite journaling supplies or

26:16

anything that you like to use to enhance

26:19

your Bible study experience

26:21

?

26:21

Yeah , so I use . Well , it's

26:23

just it's not really a Bible study tool per se

26:25

, but it's Evernote and I've filled up

26:27

, you know , with because I like to take things

26:30

I'm learning in the scripture and pray them . So

26:32

I have , you know , kind of been my Evernote , daily

26:34

prayer cards and

26:36

I'm , you know , putting stuff in that , praying

26:38

for my family , for my kids , for others , and

26:40

so , again , not a spiritual tool , but it's really

26:43

helpful for me .

26:44

So yeah , that's a great suggestion

26:46

. Okay , last one what

26:49

is your favorite app or website for

26:51

Bible study tools ?

26:52

Hmm , well , esv study Bible

26:55

app is marvelous because

26:57

you know the ESV study Bible . The only problem with it is is

26:59

, like you know , 48 pounds

27:01

. But now I'm just carrying around my iPad

27:03

and I know some people like to actually have a physical

27:06

Bible in their hand and I understand that , but at

27:08

least for when I'm I don't have the ability to

27:10

have that . It's just everything . They've integrated

27:12

it where it's got Bible reading plans

27:14

, it's got , you know , all these commentaries that can be

27:16

built on . It's a little bit like you mentioned

27:19

Logos . I love Logos , but it's ESV

27:21

is sort of like a more accessible

27:23

version of that , you know , because it's all built around the

27:25

Bible and I've been using one recently

27:28

called Lectio 365 .

27:30

Oh , yes , yeah , and I love it .

27:32

It's a good yeah , it's a good primer to get me started on my

27:34

Bible study . And then I have to mention

27:37

I'm sorry Ellen , our churches app

27:39

Summit Church because we build into

27:41

it . It's sort of a unified daily

27:45

, like we call it , daily revival

27:47

and it's trying to get all the people in the church

27:49

reading this . You know read the same passages , we

27:51

pray for the same missionaries , same unreached people

27:53

, groups , church per request . You know

27:55

it's it's been good to kind of develop . So I

27:57

know not everybody goes to our church , but maybe it

27:59

can inspire your church to do something similar .

28:02

Absolutely Additional insight . You're studying

28:04

the book of James now , correct ?

28:06

Well , we just finished it . So , yes , we had to say James

28:08

, yeah , Okay , all right , very

28:11

good .

28:13

Well , Pastor Greear , thank you so much for taking the time to be with

28:15

us today . I hope our

28:17

listeners feel

28:20

a little bit more confidence that it's

28:22

okay to have doubts

28:24

, to ask good questions

28:26

and seek answers . So

28:30

we appreciate you listening and

28:32

have a blessed day .