0:17

Hey, welcome back, Faithful Politics

0:17

listeners and watchers.

0:19

If you're watching our YouTube channel, I

0:19

am your political host, Will Wright, and

0:23

I'm joined by your faithful host, Pastor

0:23

Josh Bertram.

0:26

How's it going, Josh? Doing well, thank you.

0:29

And today we are joined by Michael

0:29

Hoodman.

0:36

He's the founder, president, and CEO of

0:36

Got Questions Ministries, which is the

0:46

parent ministry for GotQuestions.org.

0:50

And we are so delighted to have him here

0:50

on the show.

0:52

So, welcome to the show, Shay. Thank you, Will.

0:54

Thank you, Josh. Looking forward to talking to you this

0:56

morning. So, so I first question I have got

0:58

questions about got questions.

1:04

So what is got questions?

1:08

Questions.org is a website where we invite

1:08

people to ask us any question they have

1:15

about the Bible, anything spiritually

1:15

related.

1:18

We launched the website a little over 22

1:18

years ago, and in that time we've had over

1:24

750,000 questions personally submitted to

1:24

us.

1:29

In that time we've grown so the vast

1:29

majority of people actually find their

1:33

answers to their questions through our

1:33

FAQs online.

1:36

We're approaching… nearly 10,000 articles on the website.

1:41

So most people just find us through

1:41

Google, searching for something

1:44

spiritually related, and we'd seek to have

1:44

a biblically-based answer to that.

1:48

So that's it in a nutshell.

1:51

Yeah, that's pretty, you know, I have to

1:51

say, I used your, I used your website

1:58

quite a bit back when I was a youth

1:58

pastor.

2:02

So, I'm part of the small church.

2:06

I was sort of a new Christian. My pastor is like, hey, do you want to be

2:08

a youth pastor?

2:11

And I think the qualifications was the

2:11

fact that I didn't have gray hair.

2:15

So, I became a youth pastor.

2:18

didn't really know the Bible very much.

2:21

So, you know, one could argue maybe the

2:21

judgment of the pastor of time, who's a

2:24

really great guy, by the way, but my wife

2:24

is a pastor's kid.

2:27

So she was sort of my subject matter

2:27

expert.

2:29

So I use God questions quite a bit.

2:32

Programming note, you can't access God

2:32

questions in Saudi Arabia, because I

2:36

actually did some travel in Saudi Arabia

2:36

at the time.

2:39

So if you are listening or watching this

2:39

from Saudi Arabia, watch out, because the

2:45

religious police are probably going to be

2:45

knocking at your door.

2:48

But why did you create GutQuestions?

2:51

What was the origin story of the website?

2:55

sure. So yeah, it's funny the image of Saudi

2:55

Arabia.

2:58

I know at various times our website's been

2:58

blocked in various closed countries,

3:03

China, some countries in the Middle East

3:03

and so forth, but Saudi Arabia is not one

3:07

I've ever actually specifically heard.

3:09

So it's interesting to know. I'll have to look at our stats and see.

3:13

But so long story short, I went to Bible

3:13

college and seminary.

3:19

I knew God had a calling on my life.

3:23

I knew he desired me to serve him in some

3:23

way.

3:27

None of the quote-unquote traditional

3:27

forms of ministry really seemed a great

3:31

fit for me. I mean, I'm a much better writer than I am

3:32

a public speaker.

3:35

You said you were in youth ministry. Well, I joke that I don't like teenagers,

3:37

so that eliminates youth ministry.

3:41

I have no musical talent, so that

3:41

eliminates.

3:43

So basically, there was nothing really in

3:43

the local church that seemed like a really

3:47

good fit for me. But I always loved technology, loved to

3:48

write, so my wife and I were just praying,

3:51

like Lord, what's your plan?

3:55

What are you calling me to? Launch ScottQuestions.org, truly thinking

3:57

it would be a hobby.

4:00

This will be something fun we do until God

4:00

calls us to the real ministry he has

4:05

planned. Well, little did we know this was the real

4:05

ministry that God had planned, so here we

4:09

are 22 years later and watching God take

4:09

what we thought was gonna be a hobby and

4:13

just truly exploding it into one of the

4:13

most frequently visited Christian websites

4:17

in the world. Man, that's really, really cool.

4:24

One of my questions, how do you go through

4:24

the process?

4:28

Walk me through like going from someone

4:28

who is asking a question, they get an

4:34

idea, they have a question, they go to gut

4:34

questions.

4:38

Walk through submitting and then what

4:38

happens after they click submit or

4:43

whatever it is that they have to do, what

4:43

has to happen?

4:47

And then how do you guys go about

4:47

answering

4:50

questions that people give you because I

4:50

my guess is that you can get a lot of

4:54

similar questions but then you probably

4:54

get a lot of complicated questions that

5:00

maybe are not just easy to answer you know

5:00

in a quick way so what's that process like

5:07

So Josh, absolutely.

5:10

The questions we get range from easy to

5:10

confusing to difficult to impossible to

5:17

embarrassing to. Anything and everything you can imagine

5:19

people would ask them, we've been asked

5:22

over the past 22 years. And so right now, again, with our FAQ

5:24

archive being so extensive, the vast

5:29

majority of people actually find their

5:29

answer on the website.

5:32

But still, even with that said, we receive

5:32

maybe 100, 120 questions a day that are

5:37

actually submitted to us. So if someone submits that button, first

5:39

it'll come up with a do any of the

5:44

articles on the website match your

5:44

question If not, then they can submit it

5:48

when it's submitted it comes to our

5:48

database And when every day one of our

5:52

employees will go through all the

5:52

questions from the previous day See if we

5:56

already have an answer prepared and if we

5:56

do we can send that out And if not, we

5:59

have a team of around 200 volunteers who

5:59

help us answer all the questions we

6:04

receive So then we'll submit it to a

6:04

volunteer so example if it's a question

6:08

about times if a question about culture if the

6:09

question about counseling those sorts of

6:13

things we have different quote-unquote

6:13

experts who are really good at answering

6:18

those type of questions will assign the

6:18

question to you and then

6:21

they have a few days to answer the

6:21

question.

6:23

When they answer it, it comes back to us

6:23

and then one of our employees will

6:27

actually review all the answers that

6:27

written by our volunteers and approve it

6:31

before it's sent out to the person who

6:31

asked the question.

6:35

So that's the basic gist of the personal

6:35

Q&A process.

6:41

That's so wild. I mean, when we started this podcast four

6:43

years ago...

6:50

I knew we were coming into this world

6:50

where we're going to talk to theologians

6:54

and all kinds of other really, really

6:54

smart people.

6:58

And I would say if there's one big

6:58

takeaway from what I've learned from the

7:03

podcast is I don't really know theology

7:03

that much because we talked to all these

7:07

really smart people about a variety of

7:07

different issues and they come at it from

7:12

various perspectives, interpretations in

7:12

Greek and Hebrew and all this other kind

7:17

of stuff. wondering, like, how do you, how do you

7:19

wade through the different

7:24

interpretations, the different

7:24

translations, like, to arrive at something

7:29

that you feel is sort of the definitive

7:29

answer and kind of like the way that the

7:34

Bible is actually really, you know,

7:34

telling you to answer the question in the

7:38

way that you do. Exactly.

7:42

So, Will, let's say if I was, you were my

7:42

youth pastor, I was one of the students

7:49

under your ministry, and I came to you and

7:49

said, Hey, Will, I've got a question about

7:54

this. What do you think it means?

7:58

You then have a couple choices. One, you can say, well, here are the five

7:59

interpretations of this passage.

8:06

You go figure it out on your own, Mm-hmm.

8:09

Well, here's what I think is the correct

8:09

answer.

8:12

And we have found in our experience that

8:12

the vast majority of people, when they ask

8:16

us a question, they're not asking, give me

8:16

the 10 views and have me figure it out.

8:20

They're actually asking us, what do you

8:20

think is the right answer?

8:23

So generally that's our approach.

8:25

In doing that, we're not saying this is

8:25

the only possible interpretation.

8:28

And often we will give multiple viewpoints

8:28

if we think there are, and there's three

8:34

ways. that are biblically plausible, where this

8:34

could be passage, and then here's the one

8:38

we prefer and why.

8:40

But sometimes if it's a really important

8:40

issue, like how can I know for sure I go

8:44

to heaven when I die? We're just giving one view.

8:47

We're not giving, there's no latitude in a

8:47

question like that where here's what the

8:52

Bible says, point blank.

8:55

So that's generally how we approach.

8:57

We try to be careful even if we're just

8:57

saying, here's the answer we prefer and

9:01

why. to do that in a humble spirit, not

9:02

claiming this is the only possible way to

9:07

interpret this or you have to agree with

9:07

this 100% in order to be a Christian or

9:11

for being in fellowship with us as

9:11

brothers and sisters in Christ, but at the

9:14

same time we don't want to cause confusion

9:14

when most people, when they ask us,

9:18

they're asking us, what do you think the

9:18

right answer is?

9:22

And how many of your questions come from

9:22

like, seminary students that are just

9:27

trying to, you know, write a paper or go

9:27

to their education?

9:34

it's funny that you ask because there's

9:34

been a couple of Bible colleges and

9:40

seminaries who have actually contacted us

9:40

and reported.

9:44

There's a lot of plagiarism of

9:44

GotQuestions that are going on.

9:48

And so as one of you know, we've

9:48

instituted this policy that they're not

9:52

allowed to use GotQuestions as a source,

9:52

or at least they have to cite it.

9:58

I spoke at the Bible college that I

9:58

graduated from in their chapel one time,

10:03

and afterwards someone took a picture of

10:03

me and then posted it online and said, I

10:08

got to meet the co-author of 80% of the

10:08

research papers at this school.

10:13

I was like, that's hilarious, but sad at

10:13

the same time.

10:18

So I mean, we strive really hard to not

10:18

just be helping people with their

10:24

Christian school or Bible college or

10:24

seminary.

10:27

homework and it's not really that common.

10:29

But sometimes if they're asking some long,

10:29

complicated question, like, okay, this

10:34

sounds a lot like something that would be

10:34

an assignment.

10:38

And so typically then we'll just ask, and

10:38

say, hey, can you explain what you need

10:41

this answer for? We really wanna help people with questions

10:44

they personally have, not help them with

10:49

their homework. And sometimes people will respond, like,

10:49

oh yeah, I'm taking a Bible study and I

10:53

didn't understand this question. No, we're happy to help, but.

10:56

then often some people, they will never

10:56

respond.

10:58

So then we don't ever actually go back and

10:58

answer that question.

11:01

So it's an interesting struggle and don't

11:01

want to be judgmental and assume things

11:09

about people who are asking questions. At the same time, if they're asking, what

11:10

are the four possible interpretations of

11:15

this passage from a dispensational,

11:15

premillennial perspective?

11:18

It's like, okay, that sounds more like a

11:18

homework question than it does something

11:22

that someone has personally come up with.

11:25

through studying the Bible on their own. Yeah, I'm curious.

11:29

How are you guys thinking about

11:29

integrating AI and are you?

11:34

Because basically, right, chat GPT can now

11:34

like people can have their try to have it

11:41

write their papers. And now everyone's trying to figure out

11:42

how to how to work through this.

11:47

Like, are you thinking about integrating

11:47

AI?

11:50

Is there what do you imagine the future

11:50

is?

11:53

Forgot questions and AI.

11:57

in this next season. That's a great question. And when ChatGBT first came out, we've got

11:59

this number of people, hey, you guys

12:04

should launch an AI chat bot that answers

12:04

questions for you.

12:10

And it's like, so we experimented with it. And I'm amazed with ChatGBT and some of

12:11

the other AI bots out there that actually

12:17

can do a pretty good job sometimes.

12:19

But then you ask it something else and

12:19

it's like, well, the Bible says this, but

12:25

that's only because it's written. 2000 years ago by people who really don't

12:27

understand anything.

12:29

It's like Okay, so then what about an AI

12:29

that's actually trained to only answer

12:35

questions based on Content from got

12:35

questions at Oregon other sites.

12:40

We deem trustworthy well better But still

12:40

we've never seen an AI chat bot that we

12:46

can't with a little bit of effort Get it

12:46

to give a bad answer Even a bad answer on

12:52

something that's like really important. So we

12:56

We've experimented with it. We have developers who have one.

12:58

We have one that we kind of play with

12:58

internally in terms of we're trying to get

13:02

it to the point. Could we get it to be good enough that we

13:03

could release it to the public in good

13:08

conscience and not have to worry about

13:08

what's it saying?

13:11

Is it leading you to an astray? Is someone gonna take a screenshot of

13:12

something terrible? It said, and look what GodQuestions.org

13:14

told us.

13:17

So that sort of thing, but we're not yet

13:17

at that point that we're comfortable

13:21

releasing something. We know several other Christian ministries

13:22

have and don't.

13:26

question their integrity for doing so, but

13:26

just like we're not yet at that point, but

13:31

we're experimenting with it furiously and

13:31

some of the other things AI can do, like

13:36

AI translations. We've had some of our translators say,

13:38

wow, for some languages it is as good as a

13:44

human translator, way better than like a

13:44

Google translate.

13:47

So we're experimenting with that. We're recognizing that there are some

13:49

definite benefits to AI, but also trying

13:53

to take a cautious approach. We're a technology-based ministry.

13:58

We're not always the first to jump into

13:58

something that's brand new.

14:02

We want to test it and make sure where,

14:02

um, whether the Bible says in Romans 14,

14:07

whatever is not of faith is sin, and

14:07

everyone should be fully convinced.

14:10

Well, we're not yet fully convinced that

14:10

we should be launching something to the

14:15

public. So that's why we haven't as of yet.

14:18

That's really cool. So kind of in preparation for this, we did

14:21

reach out to kind of our faith of politics

14:26

community, Facebook, Twitter, what have

14:26

you, just get some questions to ask you.

14:33

And we also, you know, so I'm going to ask

14:33

you some of these questions.

14:39

Some of the questions I actually took just

14:39

from your website as well, because I think

14:42

that they're really, really important,

14:42

especially kind of in the time period

14:45

we're in. So... So are you ready to get some questions?

14:52

I'm ready. I said warning ahead of time, I've been

14:52

doing this for 22 years, so you can ask me

14:59

anything that I've never been asked

14:59

before, but I always preface it with,

15:04

again, I'm a writer, so I'd much prefer

15:04

to, you give me a question, give me a

15:08

couple hours to write something up and

15:08

come up with it, but I'll do my best with

15:12

God's help. All right, cool, cool.

15:14

So, yeah, so some of these questions, like

15:14

I said, are from our community, from your

15:18

website, and some are questions that I

15:18

personally have had.

15:24

So, I mentioned to our audience before, I

15:24

didn't grow up in the church.

15:27

I identified as an atheist probably the

15:27

majority of my life until like 2008.

15:34

So, some of these questions, you know,

15:34

kind of come from that period in my life.

15:37

But I'll ask you a softball question to

15:37

kind of start off with.

15:39

So, you know, the...

15:42

Does the Bible mandate tithing?

15:45

And if you tithe to a podcast that has a

15:45

Christian pastor as a co-host, does it

15:50

still count? Ha ha ha.

15:53

Nice. So, um, in the Old Testament law, they

15:54

were, the tithe was commanded.

16:02

It was like basically give 10% of your

16:02

produce.

16:06

Um, the interesting thing is over the

16:06

course of a year, there were actually

16:10

three different tithes. give a tithe of your first truth, a tithe

16:13

of this, and a tithe of that.

16:16

So in the Old Testament economy, it

16:16

actually added up to something like 23 and

16:20

a third percent, because there's three

16:20

different times of 10 percent, give 10

16:23

percent, and then give 10 percent of

16:23

what's left and then 10 percent of what's

16:26

left. Um, so the Christian church, I've searched

16:27

through church history, can't really find

16:34

a clear answer to how they adopted just a

16:34

10 percent thing, but that's

16:39

Generally speaking, a lot of Christian

16:39

denominations have adopted that as a good

16:42

principle. So the apostle Paul teaches that we are to

16:43

give sacrificially, which give cheerfully

16:48

in second Corinthians. So 10% is no, it's not biblically

16:49

commanded of Christians, but it's just a

16:55

good principle. That seems to be an amount where if you're

16:56

giving 10% of your income, that's enough

16:59

that it hurts. So that actually makes it a sacrifice.

17:02

Um, and yet it's not so high that it

17:02

prevents you from being able to

17:08

provide for your family and take care of

17:08

the things you have to take care of.

17:11

So that's kind of where that came from.

17:14

I believe Christians are commanded to give

17:14

sacrificially, but I don't think a 10

17:18

legalistic 10% is really what God has in

17:18

mind.

17:22

And then to your second question, we get

17:22

people who ask, so just, I find more value

17:29

in gotquestions.org than I do my church.

17:32

Can I tie this to you instead? And our answer is usually no.

17:35

We firmly believe that you should be

17:35

giving.

17:38

primarily to your whatever local church

17:38

body that you are attending.

17:42

Um, but with that said, we don't believe

17:42

in a legalistic 10%.

17:46

So some people who decide I'm going to

17:46

give 5% to my church and 5% to this

17:52

ministry and 5% to support a missionary

17:52

and those sorts of things.

17:56

Or if, if they, if they were so led, they

17:56

could give to a podcast.

18:02

Yes. I will not discourage that, especially

18:03

since one of you is a

18:07

a pastor. So to answer your question, no, I do not

18:08

believe there's a legalistic 10% giving

18:14

mandate for Christians, and no, I do not

18:14

believe that the Bible commands that

18:19

you're giving it has to be only to a local

18:19

church.

18:22

I do believe it can be spread out through

18:22

any Christian churches, causes,

18:27

ministries, outreaches, etc.

18:30

That's great. So here's one of the questions that we got

18:31

from our audience is, where in the Bible

18:38

does it say that being gay is a sin?

18:43

wow, we've never been asked that question

18:43

before.

18:45

And I was like, think of it.

18:47

Yeah, anything that's controversial,

18:47

culture-related, I mean, those are the

18:52

questions we get all the time. There's several passages throughout the

18:54

Bible.

18:58

You look in the Old Testament law, there's

18:58

a couple in Leviticus that are pretty

19:03

harsh, I'd say, in terms of describing

19:03

homosexual behavior as an abomination.

19:08

So that's a sin that's unnatural, not just

19:08

a

19:12

sin as in this is something that violates

19:12

God's law, but this is a sin that actually

19:17

goes against nature, how we're actually

19:17

created.

19:21

In the New Testament, there's several

19:21

passages in 1 Corinthians that talks at

19:25

least homosexuality in a passage of

19:25

describing people who, if you live like

19:29

this, you will not inherit the kingdom of

19:29

God.

19:32

In Romans chapter 1, it describes people

19:32

who have rebelled against God, who have

19:36

denied God, and then God gives them over

19:36

to ever-increasing wickedness, and it

19:40

describes homosexuality in that passage.

19:43

And there are a couple of others, but the

19:43

consistent message in the Bible is that

19:47

homosexuality is not something that honors

19:47

God, it's not something that God intends,

19:51

it's not something he designed the human

19:51

body to participate in, it's not what God

19:56

pictured, God's picture for marriage, for

19:56

sex, et cetera, et cetera.

20:00

The mistake most Christians, not most, a

20:00

lot of Christians make is viewing

20:05

homosexuality as like the worst of all

20:05

sins, or the greatest sin, or a sin that

20:09

God will not forgive. None of that is true.

20:12

Homosexuality is no more or less

20:12

forgivable than heterosexual adultery.

20:19

So many people will condemn homosexuality

20:19

and yet they themselves are participating

20:23

in sexual morality on a heterosexual side.

20:25

And the Bible has way more to say about

20:25

that than it does homosexuality.

20:29

So yes, I believe the Bible's clear that

20:29

homosexuality is a sin, and yet at the

20:33

same time, it is not an unforgivable sin,

20:33

it is not a sin that.

20:38

is exempt from Jesus' sacrifice, someone

20:38

who struggles with homosexual tendencies,

20:44

has just as much access to salvation and

20:44

forgiveness through Christ as anyone else.

20:50

Yeah, you know, and I think the audience

20:50

knows, like, I don't necessarily subscribe

20:57

to that particular, you know, sort of

20:57

viewpoint.

21:01

It's not really that important, I mean,

21:01

because who am I, right?

21:04

And also, like, I'm not a theologian, so I

21:04

don't know the Bible nearly as well as I'm

21:09

sure you do. But like, we've had people on the show, we

21:10

had a transgender bishop who made a pretty

21:16

good case about, like, how the Bible sort

21:16

of talks about...

21:20

you know, transgenderism, LGBTQ issues and

21:20

stuff like that.

21:25

So, you know, I struggle with sort of,

21:25

like, the Bible's interpretation to that,

21:32

because I think she referenced something

21:32

about, like, Paul saying, like, there is

21:35

no male or female or something like that.

21:37

And, you know, obviously, like, we don't

21:37

have to get into a theological debate

21:41

here, because you would probably win. But...

21:46

Yeah, I appreciate you answering that

21:46

question.

21:50

So, oh, go ahead.

21:53

said earlier, there are other

21:53

interpretations.

21:57

I do not believe one's view of

21:57

homosexuality is what determines whether

22:00

you are a Christian or whether you can be

22:00

saved or not.

22:03

I mean, this is something I think the

22:03

Bible is clear on, but at the same time,

22:08

the Bible says so little about it that

22:08

ultimately I don't think we as a church

22:14

need to be making as big a deal out of it

22:14

as we do.

22:17

And it got questions truly. I'd rather us not have to deal with it.

22:21

as much as we do, but we just receive a

22:21

ton of questions about it.

22:24

So it's not like we're actively seeking.

22:26

We want to be a ministry to convince

22:26

people that homosexuality is a sin.

22:29

That's not our heart or desire at all, but

22:29

no, if we're a ministry that answers Bible

22:33

questions, as best as I can tell, this is

22:33

what the Bible says.

22:38

That's kind of our heart attitude on it.

22:40

Got it. That makes sense. Hold on, I gotta sneeze for real quick.

22:44

Excuse me.

22:47

All right.

22:50

All right. So I think I've asked this question to

22:50

Josh, but does the Bible explicitly state

22:58

like, you know, what happens when you die

22:58

if you don't believe in Jesus?

23:07

So Josh, you want to answer that one?

23:12

I'm pretty sure Josh has like sent me some

23:12

link to logos or something like that and I

23:16

was like, figure it out yourself. Yeah.

23:58

So I mean, yes it does.

24:04

The Bible is very clear, say like a John

24:04

14, 6 where Jesus says, I am the way, the

24:08

truth, and the life, no one comes to the

24:08

Father but by me, or Acts 4, 12.

24:12

There's no other name given to people to

24:12

be saved by other than the name of Jesus

24:18

Christ. So I think the Bible is clear that there

24:18

is a salvation experience that if you have

24:24

that, you will spend eternity with God in

24:24

heaven, and if you don't have that, you

24:28

will spend eternity separated from God.

24:31

I think the Bible is clear on that.

24:34

what that salvation experience entails.

24:36

I'm trusting in Jesus Christ as your

24:36

Savior, recognizing that you are a sinner

24:40

in need of a Savior, that Jesus died for

24:40

your sins, was raised from the dead to

24:44

demonstrate victory over sin, that his

24:44

death was a sufficient payment for sin,

24:49

and that by faith alone, through grace

24:49

alone, in Christ alone, anyone who

24:54

believes in Jesus Christ, trusting him as

24:54

Savior, can have their sins forgiven, be

24:58

saved, be promised an eternity in heaven.

25:02

The... The bad part about it is, okay, what about

25:03

those who don't receive Christ?

25:07

What about those who reject this message? What happens to them?

25:11

The Bible seems clear to me that they

25:11

spend eternity separated from God.

25:15

Some Christians believe that means eternal

25:15

conscious punishment and, and hell for

25:20

eternity. Other Christians believe that there is a

25:20

time where basically everyone who didn't

25:26

believe in Christ is annihilated. They simply cease to exist.

25:29

They're no longer there. no longer exist.

25:34

I think both views are within the realm of

25:34

Christian Orthodoxy.

25:39

I mean you can hold either of those views

25:39

and then there are Christians who hold a

25:43

wider viewpoint in saying that God may

25:43

provide a second chance for salvation

25:49

after death. I don't see a whole lot of biblical

25:50

evidence for that but there are Christians

25:53

who believe that. There are Christians who believe that

25:54

people who've never heard the gospel,

25:58

never been exposed to Jesus can be saved

25:58

by just trusting.

26:02

Basically, I know God needs to save me.

26:06

They've never heard of the gospel, but

26:06

they can be saved through Christ, even

26:10

without hearing of Christ, based on the

26:10

mercy and grace of God.

26:12

So there's some Christians who have a

26:12

wider viewpoint on who can be saved, and

26:16

there's some Christians who are more

26:16

restrictive.

26:18

I'm more on the restrictive side, but I do

26:18

not, in any sense, claim any authority

26:24

over God to be more gracious and merciful

26:24

than I necessarily...

26:31

read from scripture. So that's basically, does that answer your

26:32

question?

26:36

It does, but there's still a question

26:36

mark.

26:40

I mean, like, I believe everything that

26:40

you just said about, you know, kind of our

26:44

salvation. I was more or less like wondering, like,

26:45

you know, is there a scripture or passage

26:50

that says, like, you will go to hell if

26:50

you don't believe in Jesus?

26:56

Because based on, at least, my

26:56

interpretation or reading, it's like,

27:00

there's a lot of like, yeah, you really

27:00

should believe in Jesus, because you're

27:02

going to go to heaven. And... And oh yeah, and by the way, here's this

27:04

other place that you could go.

27:07

But like, is there a straight line from

27:07

you don't believe.

27:11

So you're going here kind of thing.

27:13

Yeah.

27:16

Look at John 3, like 18 and 36.

27:21

Hugh believes he's condemned.

27:25

Hugh does not believe he's condemned. Hugh does not believe he will continue to

27:27

experience the wrath of God.

27:30

You can look at Matthew, I think it's 25,

27:30

46, the Dozer of Believer.

27:36

Some go to eternal destruction, others to

27:36

eternal life, so that dividing line.

27:44

describes those who arrive at the judgment

27:44

seat and are the great white throne

27:49

judgment and were not connected to God

27:49

through Christ or thrown into the lake of

27:54

fire so there are those things but there's

27:54

no, I don't know, there's not like a clear

28:00

passage or verse in scripture that

28:00

outlines all of this and it's clearly and

28:05

explicitly as we would like so we kind of

28:05

have to put it together through various

28:09

teachings of scripture but I believe it's,

28:09

the Bible is very clear that

28:14

Believing in Jesus results in one thing,

28:14

rejecting Jesus results in another.

28:19

What precisely those things look like?

28:21

Is there any sort of like intermediate

28:21

time period until the end times, those

28:25

sorts of things? That can be a lot of debate.

28:30

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You know, one of the things that I hear

28:31

you saying and something that I've come to

28:40

believe in my own life and in my own

28:40

ministry, which I didn't used to think

28:46

about the Bible this way, but thinking

28:46

about like the Bible is providing us with

28:52

data that we have to take, and then we

28:52

have to take that data

28:58

and we have to understand it, and then we

28:58

have to apply it.

29:03

And like, I guess the reason I'm saying

29:03

that is because we can, sometimes we can

29:09

treat the Bible as if it was written in

29:09

our century with our standards and

29:17

everything like that, which it wasn't. That's not to say it isn't truth, I very

29:19

much believe.

29:23

in the truth and the authority of

29:23

scripture and I believe in the inerrancy

29:28

and the infallibility of scripture when

29:28

rightly understood.

29:34

And I think though that I think some

29:34

people, they wonder how can we come to all

29:39

these different, excuse me, these

29:39

different interpretations?

29:43

How is it that we can have all these like

29:43

this data that seems to be so clear, you

29:49

know, or some you know, we want, we say that it's that

29:50

it's fairly clear, but then we get these

29:56

different interpretations that come. Like you said, some people think it's

29:58

annihilation.

30:01

Some people think that it's eternal

30:01

conscious punishment.

30:04

Some people think that, you know, there is

30:04

no like ultimately God is going to somehow

30:11

save everybody that's ever existed.

30:14

This universalism and I'm just talking

30:14

about hell, right?

30:17

But these these questions and these interpretations

30:18

can be multiplied, you know,

30:24

exponentially, looking at different

30:24

questions and concerns about the Bible.

30:31

So this is more like of a process

30:31

question.

30:34

How do you guys move from like, hey,

30:34

here's the data, drawing inferences from

30:39

the data, and then move it into

30:39

application to give to someone, hey,

30:45

here's what we... what we believe this is the answer that

30:46

we're gonna give you, not like you said,

30:51

here's 10 different interpretations,

30:51

choose one.

30:54

Here's the answer we think you should

30:54

have.

30:56

How do you move through that process?

30:59

Help us kind of understand that and see

30:59

that.

31:01

Cause it might be helpful for a listener

31:01

who's wondering, well, yeah, you just say

31:05

that, but that's just an interpretation. Well, I guess when we get to those things,

31:07

then we can look at how things are being,

31:13

how inferences are being made and how...

31:16

interpretations are coming. And just to kind of, does the question

31:18

make sense to trying to understand how you

31:25

guys do that? I definitely feel you in the sense of

31:26

there's so many interpretations.

31:33

The question is really difficult.

31:36

We have an article on our site, why are

31:36

there so many different Christian

31:39

interpretations? And we go into some of the causes of it.

31:43

And it's frustrating. I remember pretty early in my Christian

31:44

life I asked my youth pastor, it's like,

31:50

okay, why are there so many different— views, if God wanted to understand this,

31:52

why didn't he make it more clear?

31:55

And his answer was like, are you sure it's

31:55

not clear?

32:00

And are people just making it unclear by

32:00

inserting their own preconceptions, their

32:06

own biases, they're trying to make it say

32:06

what they want it to say rather than what

32:09

it says. And I see a lot of that.

32:12

I think some of that can explain some of

32:12

the different interpretations is, I don't

32:16

like what this says, so therefore I'm

32:16

going to change what it says.

32:20

But that's definitely not the answer to a lot of things. There's some passages that are truly,

32:22

they're difficult.

32:24

There's not really a clear answer.

32:27

So some of the principles we go by, I

32:27

think God speaks clearly.

32:34

So we prefer a literal interpretation,

32:34

that if this verse says this, unless it's

32:39

a very clear reason to not accept.

32:42

it that way, we're going to interpret it

32:42

literally.

32:44

God's Word means what it says. There's not some hidden allegory behind

32:46

every single passage.

32:50

The second principle is, does this

32:50

interpretation agree with the rest of

32:55

scripture? Because if ultimately the Holy Spirit

32:56

inspired all of scripture, he's not going

33:00

to contradict himself. So, okay, which interpretation best agrees

33:00

with all the other passages that speak on

33:05

this same issue? You can look to church history to an

33:08

extent, like, OK, if Christians have been

33:11

studying this issue for 2000 years, maybe

33:11

I shouldn't ignore what God has revealed

33:17

to them as they've studied this issue. So which viewpoint has been the most

33:19

accepted through church history?

33:23

So there are some of the principles we go

33:23

by, but then also just like I mean, I have

33:28

taken Greek and Hebrew.

33:30

I love theology. I love studying God's word.

33:32

And. consulting other experts on it.

33:35

Okay, what are some people who know the

33:35

ins and outs of the Greek of this passage?

33:39

And sometimes that can help. So in saying all that, I don't want to

33:40

make it sound like you have to be a Bible

33:45

scholar to be able to understand the Bible. Like, no, I mean, the Bible says if you

33:47

don't accept the gospel like a child, then

33:54

multiple times scripture applauds a child,

33:54

like a simple faith.

33:59

So I don't want to say it's complicated,

33:59

but

34:02

And some of it, when you get to a

34:02

difficult passage, there's sometimes, you

34:05

need to do diligence, look to every

34:05

possible resource to help you to

34:09

understand it. Especially when you're in a ministry like

34:11

this, where James chapter three applies,

34:15

where teachers will be judged more

34:15

strictly, we want to give our best effort,

34:19

as best as we can possibly tell, hopefully

34:19

led by the Holy Spirit, this is the right

34:24

answer. But those are just some of the principles

34:25

we'll go by in terms of trying to help

34:28

guide us to how do we arrive at it when

34:28

there's multiple options.

34:32

Yeah, so here's a question that I'm sure

34:32

you've gotten before.

34:37

I kind of tweeted a little bit just for

34:37

comical sake, but, you know, imagine

34:41

you're in a plane, a Boeing, a panel comes

34:41

off the plane, you get sucked out because

34:48

you didn't put your seatbelt on, and

34:48

you're hurtling down towards the earth,

34:55

right? You're not a believer, but you just so

34:56

happen to

35:02

10 years ago, and you're like, okay, in

35:02

order to get to heaven, I need to believe.

35:08

I don't currently believe, but I want to

35:08

believe, and I'm going to believe before I

35:12

actually, you know, meet the earth.

35:14

So, like, if you were to give your life to

35:14

Christ five seconds, say, before you hit

35:20

the ground, like, would you still go to

35:20

heaven?

35:24

So deathbed conversion, that's kind of how

35:24

that's typically phrased to us.

35:29

And the example I'd go to would be one of

35:29

the two thieves that were crucified with

35:34

Jesus. The Bible doesn't tell us much about this

35:35

person. It even says at one point both of them

35:37

were ridiculing Christ, like, hey, why are

35:44

you here? Or if you're the Messiah, take yourself

35:45

down.

35:47

And eventually, probably through the way

35:47

Jesus was responding,

35:51

the different things that he heard Jesus say. One of them in the end said, Jesus,

35:52

remember me when you come into your

35:57

kingdom. And Jesus responded with, today you'll be

35:57

with me in paradise.

36:04

So indicating, yes, a deathbed conversion,

36:04

so to speak, like that is possible.

36:08

So if this person sucked out of an

36:08

airplane, falling and remembered

36:12

something, basically if they can remember,

36:12

I'm a sinner, you're the savior,

36:20

Please save me. I firmly believe that Jesus in his grace

36:22

and mercy would save a person with such a

36:28

brief, simple expression of faith like

36:28

that.

36:34

That's cool. Deathbed conversions.

36:37

I would not recommend deathbed

36:37

conversions, by the way.

36:42

Just as a rule in general for whoever's

36:42

listening, you know, deathbed conversions

36:47

are kind of... Yeah, go ahead, Shay.

36:50

What do you say? 90% of people don't actually have a

36:51

deathbed experience.

36:55

Their death comes like that.

36:58

So, um, don't trust that you're going to

36:58

have the opportunity right before you die

37:03

to trust in Christ. I mean, while it says that today is the

37:03

day of salvation, now is the time.

37:07

So if you're recognizing your need and do

37:07

it now, don't put it off as you're not

37:11

promised tomorrow. Yeah, we're definitely not promised

37:14

tomorrow.

37:17

You know, I want to just ask you a

37:17

question.

37:20

We only have about, you know, 10 minutes

37:20

left on the interview.

37:24

And so this is a question that could take

37:24

a long time to unpack or a short time, but

37:30

I just wanted to preface it with that just

37:30

to give you a sense.

37:34

When we're talking about evolution, the

37:34

idea of evolution, people have

37:41

Typically, especially in America, but I'm

37:41

sure it's more widespread.

37:46

I have seen this kind of inherent

37:46

Contradiction with With the scripture and

37:56

what it says and then the scientific

37:56

Theories we have and data that we have an

38:02

advancement and how do you guys deal like

38:02

at got questions?

38:08

with those kind of early passages of Genesis.

38:13

And I heard you say, you've already said

38:13

already, right, we prefer the literal

38:18

interpretation. But of course, the literal interpretation

38:20

is literal when...

38:24

when you're interpreting it according to

38:24

what the genre or whatever the passage is,

38:30

the types that are expected it to be

38:30

interpreted, how do you handle the

38:35

evolution and creation debate at God

38:35

Questions?

38:40

What do you guys answer with that? So our, let's say our default response is

38:42

that a literal interpretation in terms of

38:49

what the book of Genesis seems to be

38:49

communicating is that God created the

38:54

universe and the earth a relatively short

38:54

time ago, not billions of years, and that

39:00

God literally created one man and one

39:00

woman and from them all humanity

39:06

descended. So that's, we,

39:11

Consider, I would consider ourselves a

39:11

soft, young Earth interpretation.

39:16

So with that said, what do I mean by that?

39:19

I firmly understand and recognize that

39:19

there's a lot of scientific evidence that

39:25

seems to point to the Earth and the

39:25

universe being billions of years old.

39:30

Whether that's due to an appearance of age

39:30

or whether Genesis one and two and even

39:35

the ages in Genesis five is to be

39:35

interpreted

39:39

symbolically or poetically or whatever.

39:42

I recognize that as a possibility. Ultimately as long as we get to a literal

39:44

Adam and Eve through whom all humanity

39:49

descended, the gospel still works.

39:51

So you can be a young earth creationist,

39:51

you can be a progressive creationist, you

39:55

can be an old earth creationist, you can

39:55

be even a theistic evolutionist believing

40:00

that God used evolution over millions of

40:00

years to eventually create humanity as we

40:05

know it now and still ultimately

40:08

be a Christian. Evolution I don't go there.

40:14

I'm pretty strongly opposed to the

40:14

theistic evolution viewpoint, but there's

40:19

simply no evidence for that in scripture.

40:21

But the other viewpoints, I'm much more

40:21

comfortable with any of those.

40:25

So while we take a Young Earth approach,

40:25

we try to do so in the spirit of grace.

40:29

And a lot of our articles say, here's one

40:29

way of viewing it, and here's another way,

40:33

especially on this issue. Because your view of

40:38

how old the earth is really is not in any

40:38

sense determinative of whether you can

40:42

trust in Christ as your Savior. So we have a preferred viewpoint based on

40:44

our strong preference for literal

40:49

interpretation, but we are not a young

40:49

earth ministry in that sense and in no

40:55

sense are we feel called. We want to convince everyone that the

40:56

earth is only six thousand years old.

41:00

And there are other ministries that do

41:00

that to a degree where overly strong.

41:07

And I think that turns a lot of people off. So let's focus on the gospel.

41:11

Let's focus on helping people to trust in

41:11

Christ as savior and then leave some of

41:15

these issues more up to discipleship

41:15

rather than trying to convince people that

41:20

evolution is a lie and most of the science

41:20

you've been taught your whole life is

41:25

completely untrue before you even get to

41:25

the point of sharing them what is

41:30

ultimately eternally important. That's really good.

41:35

Yeah, I appreciate you saying that.

41:38

We did speak with an individual, David

41:38

Reavius, who really tries to tackle this

41:47

evolution, creationist sort of idea, kind

41:47

of with his ministry.

41:51

But my last question for you, I was really

41:51

surprised.

41:57

that your website actually had questions

41:57

on there about the New Apostolic

42:02

Reformation, which is something that we've

42:02

actually, we've talked to reporters,

42:07

theologians, academics, whatever, about

42:07

this topic.

42:10

So, I'd love to kind of get your take on

42:10

what does the Bible say about sort of the

42:14

New Apostolic Reformation and this idea of

42:14

like,

42:21

Oh yeah, so, yeah. In the few minutes we have left here, yes.

42:29

Yeah, okay, 30 seconds. New apostolic Reformation.

42:34

I've met people in this movement who are

42:34

like, you know what, your beliefs are

42:38

actually really, really close to mine,

42:38

except for this viewpoint that there are

42:43

still apostles and prophets today.

42:47

And. Some in the movement will take, will

42:48

consider themselves an apostle, but

42:52

approach it with a humble spirit.

42:54

Others consider themselves apostles, and

42:54

then therefore, basically, I have the same

43:00

authority as the original twelve apostles,

43:00

so they go around going, visiting all

43:06

different churches and telling them all

43:06

the things they're doing wrong, and you

43:08

need to submit to me because I'm an

43:08

apostle.

43:11

That's extremely problematic, to say the

43:11

least.

43:16

In Ephesians where it talks about here,

43:16

God gave some to be apostles, some to be

43:20

prophets, some to be pastors, teachers,

43:20

evangelists.

43:24

So are we saying the only pastors,

43:24

teachers, and evangelists, or only left

43:29

apostles and prophets were only the early

43:29

church?

43:31

What does it mean to be an apostle? I mean, an apostle basically means one who

43:33

was sent.

43:35

So are the missionaries of today, are they

43:35

the apostles?

43:39

A prophet is someone who speaks forth

43:39

God's message.

43:42

Are the pastors today serving in that

43:42

prophetic role?

43:48

Um, I just, my negative experience with

43:48

the new apostolic reformation has been in

43:54

the abuse of people basically claiming

43:54

authority over churches and telling them

43:58

what to do. Um, there's no re questionable teachings.

44:01

And then when you get into the seven

44:01

mountain mandate and those sorts of

44:05

things, a lot of the new apostolic

44:05

reformation can go to very like our job is

44:10

to set up the kingdom now, or basically to

44:10

conquer this world, not just

44:16

with the gospel in terms of people's lives

44:16

being transformed, but to enforce like a

44:20

Christian form of government on everyone,

44:20

forcing everyone to live by Christian

44:25

ideals. And like, Jesus said, my kingdom is not of

44:25

this world.

44:30

That the way to transform this world is to

44:30

be, to transform individual people through

44:35

the gospel. So I think there's enough abuses in the

44:36

new apostolic Reformation that our

44:41

article, if I remember correctly, is

44:41

fairly strong in trying to steer people

44:45

away. that movement, but with that sentiment,

44:46

saying everything in the movement is wrong

44:50

or that people in the movement aren't true

44:50

believers.

44:52

I think many of them are, but just that

44:52

entitlement attitude they have where I

44:59

have this authority and therefore you have

44:59

to submit to me, that's extremely

45:03

problematic. And so that's my primary concern based on

45:04

my experience with the new apostolic

45:09

Reformation. Yeah, I would definitely share those

45:10

concerns.

45:13

And yeah, I would be in agreement with you

45:13

on that part.

45:20

So this is kind of the last question.

45:24

And then I'm going to close this out. So how can people get involved?

45:28

How can people? follow you, check out your stuff.

45:32

Obviously you have the website, but kind

45:32

of let people know, cast a wide net.

45:37

We got a lot of different people that

45:37

listen to this podcast from different

45:40

faith walks and even no faith at all.

45:43

And politically, how can they get

45:43

involved?

45:45

How can they follow? How can they interact?

45:47

Exactly, so our slogan is, got questions,

45:47

the Bible has answers, we'll help you find

45:52

them. So if everyone at some point had a

45:52

question about something spiritual

45:58

related, so if you want an answer from a

45:58

biblical perspective, we're here for you.

46:02

You can come to our website, ask us a

46:02

personal question, we can have someone

46:05

personally respond, you can read, like I

46:05

said, nearly 10,000 articles on the

46:09

website of all the most common questions.

46:11

We've got a podcast, we've got another

46:11

site called BibleRef.com, which is a

46:16

verse by verse commentary on every verse

46:16

of the Bible.

46:19

So someone searches, what does John 3.16

46:19

mean?

46:22

We have a verse specifically on that verse

46:22

and then next verse and previous verse in

46:26

context, all those things. So our goal, our ministry, is to help

46:27

people to understand what God's Word says

46:32

about the spiritual questions they have.

46:34

We also have a book coming out soon called

46:34

The Top 100 Questions About God on the

46:39

Bible where based on our 22 years of

46:39

experience, hundreds of millions of

46:44

visitors to the website over the time These are the questions that most people

46:45

have and the most people are searching for

46:51

online. So, say more so than perhaps any other

46:51

ministry in the history of the church, we

46:58

know what questions people are asking.

47:01

And here are what we view as the top 100.

47:04

So, interested in that, that book will be

47:04

available on Amazon.com.

47:08

It's called The Top 100 Questions About

47:08

God on the Bible.

47:12

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us

47:13

today, Shay.

47:17

And for our listeners, this has been Shay

47:17

Hudman.

47:19

He's the founder, president, CEO of

47:19

GotQuestions Ministries and has the

47:26

website is www. And it was such a pleasure to have you on

47:27

here today, Shay.

47:32

Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Josh.

47:35

Thank you, Will. I truly enjoyed our conversation today.

47:38

Same here to our listeners and watchers.

47:40

Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time.

47:44

And until then, keep your conversations

47:44

not left or right, but up.

47:48

God bless, guys. See you.