In a world where “my truth” has replaced the truth, how can Christians stay grounded in what’s real and biblical — especially when emotions and culture pull us in every direction? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Barnett, apologist and speaker with Stand to Reason (STR), to talk about what it means to live anchored in truth in a feelings-first world. We unpack why truth matters more than emotion, how to share it with both clarity and compassion, and what it looks like to filter every belief and decision through the lens of God’s Word. Tim also shares practical ways to discern the Holy Spirit’s leading from our own impulses, engage hard conversations with grace, and stay faithful when standing for truth feels costly or misunderstood. If you’ve ever wrestled with balancing grace and truth, or felt tension between faith and feelings, this episode will encourage you to think deeply, love well, and stay rooted in what’s true.
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Jac: [00:00:00] Tim, welcome to the podcast.
You probably were like, why is this girl reaching out to me? Her background is integrative medicine, all things health and wellness. You’re probably like, what does she wanna talk to me about?
Tim: I did. I did think that. I honestly was like, did she email the wrong
Jac: accident?
Tim: Yeah. Honestly.
Jac: Well, for your context, Tim. So this podcast originally centered around physical health and wellness, but over time I felt really called to expand beyond that and to dig deeper into emotional and spiritual health too and honestly. Looking at the world around us today, you know, especially with the state of our culture and our political climate here in the States, it’s pretty clear that emotional and spiritual confusion are at an all time high.
And I came across you and your work and I was like, this is someone I really wanna have a conversation with. And with, quite honestly, Tim, those are the folks I’ve been bringing on the show, right? To discuss topics and ideas that I feel like. I, myself have [00:01:00] questions about, I need to hear answers too.
And I’m sure that if I have those questions, there certainly are a lot of other people as well.
Tim: There’s so much, I mean, we talk, I talk a lot about the spiritual side of all, you know, all this stuff, but I’m also very curious about, you know, where, where you’ve been the last four years and talking about the physical health side of things, you know, um, I think that the church man, it’s so interesting.
Like, I look around the church and it’s like, we are really adamant about the really important things, but then when it comes to, you know. Physical health. It’s like it takes a backseat. You know? Let’s, yeah, let’s, let’s disciple, let’s get into the word, let’s all this, all those good things. And let’s go to, let’s go to Kentucky Fried I know, right?
church.
You know what I’m saying? I’m like, why are we poisoning our why, why, why are we poisoning ourselves? You
Jac: especially here in the South. It’s, it’s very, uh, it’s been a change.
Tim: says, it profits a man little, right? But it still [00:02:00] profits a man. Physical, physical, um, health is still an important piece of this, you
know? Um, so anyways, I, I actually am right in line, so when you reached out, I’m like, man, maybe this is God trying to say something to you, Tim, like, McDonald’s, stop it, you know, kind of thing.
’cause you know, I’ll be honest with you, when you’re on the road, um, which I travel, it is so difficult. Like, I long to be home for so many reasons, but my wife’s home cooking is number
one. ’cause it is so clean, it’s so healthy. You know, she’s putting things in my body that I need that, um, that I just don’t get anywhere else.
And it’s just easier to, you know, stop at Chick-fil-A or whatever, you know, after an event. It’s 10 o’clock I haven’t eaten, you know, it’s, you’re starving. Um, nothing’s open. I mean, it’s just so,
Jac: No, I can imagine. I know, I feel like, especially for me with podcasts, like my mental acuity and focus is dictated by what I eat. Right? [00:03:00] Even if it’s like a couple hours beforehand. So totally relate, but kudos to you for recognizing that, you know, something you might need to work on,
Tim: Yeah. Honestly, it’s like even today I am like, okay. ’cause we built like the studios in the basement of our, of
our home and. It, it’s, it’s so cool. Like we got our basement finish in the summer and we have a gym, um, in the, you know, o other side of that wall. And it is like, it’s great, you know, and I don’t UI don’t use it as much because like, my wife’s down there every day, you know, she was in there this morning and, um, and you know, ’cause like, like last night, I’m tired, I’m jet lagged.
I’m have kids too?
and then it’s like, even just to take them to drive ’em to school this morning, you know, I was like, okay, I gotta do this. ’cause she would’ve done it. But I’m like, I can’t. I gotta like, get back on schedule, you know? I can’t sleep in.
Um, so, Sweet. Well, Tim, this is gonna be one of many conversations you and I will have. This one happens to be recorded, but anytime you have any health [00:04:00] questions offline, I’m here. Um, but just to, to dive right in, Tim. So one of the core messages I’ve heard you emphasize again and again over the past few weeks since I’ve been, you know, listening to your stuff, is the importance of replacing bad thinking with good thinking. So, to start us off, I would love to ask, how can we, and this is a bit of a loaded question, as Christians today be more discerning and filtering everything through God’s truth rather than through what culture tells us.
Yeah, this is a good question. Um, because a lot of times kind of on the flip side, what happens is we interpret God’s word through the culture. Okay? And so it’s like, God can’t be saying that because I’m looking around at the world and they’re saying the exact opposite. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna reinterpret.
What God has to [00:05:00] say here. Um, and, and so I think the first step is just to be aware of that there is a sense in which our worldview, everyone has a worldview. And our worldview, I think it was man, was it Francis Schafer who says, um, some people catch a worldview, like they catch a cold. Okay? It’s not something that you planned, it’s just it happened to you.
Hey, you wake up in the morning, man, I’m not feeling so good. And, and I think that worldviews are kind of like that. Um, if we’re not careful, we can just. Take on a bad worldview and that typically, I mean, we could look around and talk about some of those worldviews, like there’s naturalism, like, man, supernatural stuff doesn’t really exist.
You know, that’s something that, by the way, in the west, lots of Christians have to fight against that because our kind of like, there’s a skepticism we have against anything supernatural. We just think about, oh, there’s God, there’s maybe some angels. That’s about it. [00:06:00] You know, that kind of thing. So there’s, there’s a natural, there’s relativism the idea that there is no truth.
And so you have your truth and I have my truth and you know, let’s just kind of live and let live as if, as if someone could just have their own truth. Right. Um, and you can have your own opinion. Yeah. Jump stop you right there, Tim? Just for for listeners right now, can we just define truth right as you and I see it? ’cause I think just like you said, a lot of people are go, this is my truth. What’s your truth? Right. And there’s a, a big issue with that.
Very good question. So a moment ago when I said, you know, that’s just true for you, that’s not true for me. Um, oftentimes when people are talking like that, really what they’re talking about is their opinion or their preference. Okay? Like their likes and dislikes. You may like chocolate ice cream, someone else may like vanilla.
So vanilla would be their truth and your truth would be chocolate. Okay? But we all understand that’s, that’s preference stuff, that’s likes and dislikes. When we say [00:07:00] truth, we’re talking about what corresponds with reality. Okay? Um, this is often called, by the way, philosophers call this the correspondence theory of truth.
And it’s very, I mean, we all understand this, it’s what matches when a claim or belief matches up with reality. So if I said, um, I drive a red Ferrari. Okay. Now anyone who knows me knows that’s not true. Okay? I don’t make that kind of money, nor do I want that kind of car. You know, I would, you know, it would be probably become an idol for me.
I wouldn’t even want to drive it ’cause I wouldn’t want something bad to happen to it or something. But you would know that’s not true. Well, how do you know it’s not true? Well, you could just check my driveway. Okay? When you check the driveway, you would see that claim that I have a red frog doesn’t match up with reality.
Okay? So that’s what we mean by, we mean by truth. Um, sometimes people talk about objective truth, and that’s, that’s the kind of [00:08:00] truth that is like I just described, corresponds with reality. It’s outside of whether I believe it or like it or not, okay? So, for example, if I were to jump off the roof of my house, it is just objectively true that I will fall to the ground.
It doesn’t, and, and I, and my beliefs about it, I could believe really hard that I can fly. I could not like that. It’s gonna hurt when I hit the ground. All those things, you know, could be the case, but it doesn’t stop me from hitting the ground. Right. The truth of the matter is that gravity causes you to fall, you know?
So, um, so that’s what we mean. Now. Sometimes people talk about subjective truth and subjective truth is the idea of preferences and opinions.
Jac: Thank you for clarifying. Those are great analogies. Um, so, so important. And with that too, Tim, so this [00:09:00] is another bit of a loaded question.
How can Christians lovingly push back against the idea that just like you said, truth is whatever works for you?
Um, and interestingly, this past Sunday at my church, uh, this man, uh, John Cox, you’d actually like him. He has a podcast, never heard about him before up until Sunday. He had a great chalk on. Or he said something like, love comes two flavors, grace and truth, right? Love and limits. And he always talks about love and limits.
And I just, I, I love that. So how can we share truth in love? With those who don’t know truth. And there’s certainly verses in scripture too that highlight this. I mean, Paul writes, you know, to speak the truth in love. And you know, Jesus says, like those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So when we love someone, right, like we discipline them like they both coexist, which I think people don’t necessarily understand.
So yeah, I mean there’s just like this precipice on each side of, you know, if you truth too hard, like people get ashamed and go [00:10:00] away. But on the other hand, if like we don’t speak truth, right? Then no one learns or understands. So how yeah. balance?
Tim: By the way, I think every parent knows. Truth and love or truth and grace because there are times when I, I, I love my kids more than hardly anything in this world. Okay? Like God and then my family, you know? And, um, I would die for my kids, but that doesn’t mean that they get to do whatever they want.
It doesn’t mean I affirm whatever they want. You know, if they want to eat candy before bed, it ain’t happening, you know? And that, by the way, is because I love them, not because I’m like angry with them or because I, I hate them, or something like that. Okay? Even they might interpret that way. They may, oh dad, you’re so unfair.
Like, if you love me, you would let me eat this. No, it’s because I love you. I’m gonna do what’s right for you, okay? And what’s good for you. So we, I think parents understand that, [00:11:00] um, that love. And the truth kind of come together, or truth and grace come together. Jesus, full of grace and truth. Jesus did it perfectly.
We have to remember, we don’t, okay, we should strive to do our best. Um, and I think that for some people, and this is like a heart check time, okay, gut check time. There’s gonna be some of us, some people listening who they lean harder on truth. I think that apologists like me, that’s kind of our thing, right?
So we kind of like, we can be more aggressive and there are times, man, I’ve gotta check my own heart. I do this thing called red pen logic with Mr. B. We respond to people’s um, challenges online. And there are times where I will show my wife. A video that I just made. She sees all my stuff before it goes out, and she’ll tell me straight up, Tim, I don’t like the way you said that, or, I don’t like you look like you’re angry, or you, you know, and she will call me out on those things.
And there’s times where I’ve, and it breaks my heart because I’ve put all the work into editing the [00:12:00] video and shoot it. Now I gotta go back to this studio in the basement and I gotta rerecord. And that’s happened before. Um, and so there’s some of us who are like hardcore lean on the truth and we can get a little too harsh.
And then there are people who. Maybe are more touchy feely, um, more, they’re gonna lean on grace and love. And I, I almost, I know this sounds almost bad to say, but, um, they just need to be aware that there’s a liability. There’s a ditch on that side too, where you can compromise speaking the truth. Okay? So there’s a ditch on one side to like the truth without any love.
And then there’s all love and no truth. And Paul says, as you pointed out, um, in one Corinthians 13, speaking about love, um, and spiritual gifts, some other things, um, he says, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. So always those things are together, and there’s gonna be times where we fail at that.
I mean, I’ve failed at it many times and I’ve had to go to people, [00:13:00] um, and ask for forgiveness, um, because, you know, we’re just, we’re all just trying to figure it out. Um, so it is, it is possible. And that should, that should be what we strive. To do. Um, I think practically, you know, I think we can know what’s true by just going, looking into God’s word and going, being discipled by the right people.
And but then the practical side, this is where it gets hard, right? Where was just gonna ask you. Yeah. I’m sitting. life situation here?
Yeah. Well, I’ve been in lots of situations where I’m talking to people who man are transgendered or, um, LGBT people in my own life, people online, you name it.
And, um, one thing I do is try to put myself in their shoes.
Okay. Um, what, what does it sound like to them to hear what I’m saying? And that kind of helps me adjust my own language. How am I gonna communicate this to you? Um, it helps to picture someone. Honestly, [00:14:00] when I’m talking with someone online, they don’t know me from anybody and I don’t know. And so it’s like, okay, I want to imagine that I’m talking with that loved one.
Who, um, who, and, and that personalizes it. I think, man, I think a big problem with our culture is social media and being online, and I know social media, it’s supposed to bring us together, make us more social. It actually makes us anti-social. There are things that you and I would never say to someone, um, face to face that we say online.
Okay. Like I’m, you know, you think of keyboard warriors, like, and there’s keyboard courage. There’s like, there’s this like, I’m gonna just let you have it caps, where’s the caps? Okay, caps lock is on, here we go, kind of thing. Um, but if you were sitting across from me, I would never have that nerve, you know?
So, um, I think it’s really helpful to. Imagine that person’s [00:15:00] right there. And I’m just telling you, I have had the sweetest conversations with people that I have read penned. There was a, there was a, I didn’t realize they were transgendered. They, this person was biologically male, um, but had been, had gone through like every surgery you could imagine.
And so they had posted something online about, um, the Bible’s view of homosexuality. And I thought, actually, there’s some real mistakes here. Okay. About, and, and so I, um, I just wanted to correct them. I’m not trying to convince you. I’m just trying to say, look at, here’s what the Bible, just, here’s what it says.
Okay. Um, about this topic. And, um, at first they, they were in the comments, like, really angry. So I reached out, direct message, said, I’m not attacking you. I love you. Um, and I, I just want to clarify. What the Bible is really teaching on this point. And, um, by the end of the conversation, this individual had invited me.
Next time I’m in their city, let’s go for [00:16:00] coffee. I mean, it was just like this sweet thing that you would never think would happen in, uh, where you just got, I just did a response video against your thing and, but we’re still friends at the end of this. That’s the way it should be.
Jac: I love that, Tim, and I mean, that ones to my next question too, like why do you think truth has become so offensive? You know, and I, I think too, like to your point of that story earlier, it just highlights the fact that people really want to be understood first, right? Like even just whatever someone’s going through.
Like
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: this man also said on Sunday, he said that, um. Company like metabolizes pain, something to that effect where like if you’re with, when you’re with people, right? Like community, not company. Yeah, community metabolizes pain. Um, and the whole point of that too is just to highlight the fact that like when you’re with someone who understands you, or at least like can empathize with you, it has the pain you’re going through.
So I feel like that could also be applied to like, you know, the offense [00:17:00] that people take too at these hardcore, you know, beliefs that they have or quote unquote their own truths, right? If they at first at least feel like they’re being understood, even if it’s someone by the different, by an opposing view, they’ll be more inclined to hear what that person has to say.
Have you Yeah. true?
Tim: I think that’s true. Um, I think that’s totally true. Um, there’s man, okay, so truth is one of these things, especially on issues like faith because it’s so personal, um, because of things like ident, because of the issues that we debate a lot in our culture are more identity issues. It’s not just what I believe, it’s who I am.
So I am a Christian, uh, and or someone might say, I am gay or I am transgendered, or whatever. Okay? So because these are deeply held beliefs, when we, when we disagree, when we say that’s not true, all of a [00:18:00] sudden that becomes super offensive. Look, we’re not logic machines, right? As much as we, I’m, I’m working on a book right now.
And I’m trying to teach critical thinking. I think there’s a, there’s a need for a book, a resource on helping people think critically. I was never
taught pt. Oh my goodness. It
is, it is. What a time, by the way, and we could do another conversation on this another day, but, um, when my book’s ready to come out, I’ve been thinking about this.
’cause we outsource our thinking. Okay. So just like I outsource my navigation, I, I get lost pulling outta my driveway. Okay. Honestly, I like some people have like this internal GPS system. My wife is one of those people. We can like be somewhere and she’s like, there’s North. And I’m thinking, how do you know where North is?
Like, we can be inside. It’s not even like she’s looking at where the sun is. She just knows. Okay. It’s like I’m watching geese, you know, I’m, I’m, and they’re flying in a V formation right now to going south and I’m thinking. How do [00:19:00] you, you guys are better at this than like I am. You know, like I can’t, if you’d said Tim, go south, I would be in trouble.
So I use my GPS for everything. I outsource my G, my navigation to GPS. We outsourced our memory to Google. We don’t need to memorize anything. It’s like at our disposal whenever I need it, boom, pull up Google. And now we are outsourcing our thinking. People are going to chat GPT and say, give me an argument for this. Here’s, oh, I got this comment in my Facebook. Okay, respond to it. They’re not thinking anymore. And by the way, chat, GPT is not a reliable source. Okay? There’s an echo chamber filtering effect that happens and uh, and I’ll just give you one quick illustration about that. So there’s this, um, Muslim apologist named Lily j She’s really popular blonde hair.
And she’ll people have probably seen her videos, um, where she’ll say, Hey, cha, GPTI have a question. And then she’ll, um, ask it like, is in one word, tell me if Jesus [00:20:00] is God. And then Cha g PT says, no. Okay. Jesus is not God. Well, I gave the exact same prompt to my chat, GPT, and it knows who I am, okay? Because I’ve used it for a number of different things.
And it said yes, the exact opposite answer. Wait a second, I thought this was just given me factual information. Well, it turns out it’s, it’s responding based off of who you are as a person. There’s, there’s a filtering or echo chamber thing happening, just like it happens on, you know, Instagram. I would see you watch one video that’s like on some wild topic, you know, some think of a conspiracy.
I shouldn’t say, I’m not gonna name one because I know people hold wild ideas. Okay. But just imagine like the most ridiculous conspiracy. You watch one video on that
and now you’re seeing, like, now you see like three of them, four of them, and all the one, all the counter arguments are filtered out. And now what’s wild is not [00:21:00] only do you come to believe that based on what you’re seeing through your feed, but you become more confident about it because it’s like you’re, that’s all you’re seeing now.
It’s like, of course everyone must believe this. ’cause you’re not even seeing the other side. You’re not seeing counter arguments. So yeah, that’s kind of a tangent there, but there’s, I think that you’re right, chat, GPT, social media, these things are, um, impacting how we think and it’s making us, um, for lack of a better word, dumber.
Jac: Yeah. To that point too, Tim, though, like you were talking about like, you know, chat t kind of like reaffirms all these beliefs you previously thought we had. Therefore, like it helps us dig our heels deeper into whatever, you know, argument or logic where we’re adhering to
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: how do we not get lost in that, in that like rabbit hole, right?
Because emotions are very strong. And one thing I always say a lot on this podcast too, and I’ve had conversations about this, is, you know how facts are not, or feelings aren’t facts and the importance of [00:22:00] being discerning, you know, between like, what does God’s truth say versus what your emotions say?
’cause our missions are fleeting, right? One Yeah. the next, they change.
Tim: So, um, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It’s a good question. Good question. There’s a book, um, by a psychologist. It’s named, uh, what’s the title? Um, the Scout Mindset, not a Christian author. Um, but she, she is writing about our motivations. Like there are times when I watch something on my feed and maybe it’s about Christianity, and because I’m a Christian apologist, I’m like, I want this to be true.
You know what I’m saying? Like, there’s something inside my heart that says, I wanna affirm this. In fact, she says, there’s often questions we ask when we come up against evidence, and there are two main questions that someone will ask depending on whether or not they want that thing to be true. Um, so the one question might be, can I believe this?
Can I believe this? So, um, I see some evidence. I see a fact, and it’s like, I wanna believe it. So can I. Well, [00:23:00] yeah, look it, there’s a reason right there. I can believe this, but when I don’t, when I, let’s say I watch an atheist video or a deconstruction video, and I’m like, man, I don’t, I don’t agree with this.
I don’t like this. I’ll ask the question, must I believe this? Not can I believe it? Must I believe this. And when I ask that question, it’s kinda like, do I have to believe this? Well, actually, I can see a problem here, here and here. So now I’m like talking myself out of it. You know what I’m saying? So, so what I would say is when we approach this stuff, we need to be just aware that we have motivations, we have a bias.
There are times when confi confirmation bias is kind of what they call it in philosophy, um, can really be strong. You know, like Christians want Christianity to be true. And so there’s times where they’ll run from counter evidence without even really looking at it or understanding it. Um, what I wanna do is my best to understand where that other person is coming from.
I wanna [00:24:00] like. Not straw man. Their argument, which would be like a straw man, as like a think of a scarecrow. I can beat up a scarecrow no problem. But if I had, like, if there was a real man in this room, 200 pound, man, you know, I, I’d have a hard time, you know, taking them down because we, we, so, and we do that with arguments.
We kind of turn them into this straw man scarecrow thing so we can knock ’em over. I wanna take on a steel man if my beliefs are true. Then they should be able to stand up against the strongest arguments. Okay? And that’s, by the way, the real question not can I believe this? Must I believe it? The real question is, is it true?
Does it correspond with reality? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? I wanna know if that’s true. I know it makes me feel hopeful and, and good and all those things, thinking about Jesus conquering death. Okay? But I wanna know if, do, did this really happen 2000 years ago? Did Jesus walk outta the tomb? Is there good reasons to believe that?
I think there is. Is it [00:25:00] true that God exists? I think there’s really good reasons to believe that God exists from fine tuning in the universe, from the origin of the universe, from the origin of life, from the origin of morality, from our consciousness. I mean, there’s all of these cool reasons to believe there’s something, prime reality out there that we call God.
Okay? Something bigger than ourselves, bigger than nature, all that stuff. So truth, I mean, going back to kind of what we were talking about, that’s what I, and we all have to guard ourselves. There’s just this like, there is, there is a, a need for us to think better. And that requires practice. That requires hard work thinking doesn’t, good thinking doesn’t come naturally.
Bad thinking comes naturally and everyone knows that. Go on social media and you’ll see viral videos and viral posts that have hundreds of thousands of likes and you’re thi and it’s full of fallacies. Like anyone who has read like the fallacy [00:26:00] detective or whatever, like a kid’s book on this stuff could see that’s not right.
And yet why did everyone like it? ’cause bad thinking is natural. And so what do we have to do? We gotta work hard at this. Just like you would work hard at playing the piano or any other musical instrument. You know, I was at a student conference the other day, just this weekend, and I asked a kid, um, he came up, they play the flute.
I said how flute is a hard instrument it looks like. So it look, it’s so small. It looks like, no, a flute just a blow in the thing is hard. Okay. There’s a way, a technique. And he’s like, yeah, yeah. I spent hours a week like learning how to play the flute. And he, and now he’s good at it. Or an athlete, man, I’m watching the Jays, I’m the Toronto Blue Jay fan.
We got game seven coming. I mean, it’s, this is awesome stuff, but these guys work so hard to be at that level, and that’s what we need to do with our thinking. We don’t do that. We sit in front of Netflix and we end up taking all [00:27:00] kinds of bad ideas and have no way to filter. We talked about filtering cultural ideas, right?
We just take them, accept them, and we have no guard against it.
Jac: Yeah, so true. I mean, yeah. Paul says, to take our thoughts captive, right? And I look at the actual word captive, like that is an aggressive word, right? Like that’s a, that’s a word that like you would see in like battle. So for him to use that word like that implies that this really is a battle to take your thoughts captive and
Tim: It’s, yeah, it’s even more than, I mean that verse second Corinthians 10, man, that is my verses four and five. like, I need to like write it on the walls. That is my verse. Honestly, when I sit down to, um, to respond to a video like this is like the verse of red pen. Logic destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
That’s what I wanna do. I’m not destroying people. I don’t wanna destroy individuals. It’s their ideas that I’m after. And [00:28:00] um, but that is again, because people can’t think. They should, they interpret that as me attacking them. Right. And so this, you, you asked the question before about being offended and I think that when you attack someone’s ideas, they take it personally.
They think it’s like an ad ho attack. It’s you’re attacking the man. Right. And I’m not doing that. I actually love you and I’m trying to help you. This is where the idea of red pen logic comes from. I was a teacher for a number of years and when I would take out, you know, the red pen? Oh yeah. Yeah. So what we would do is I would take out, and I would mar, I would grade mark, you know, correct.
My students’ work with a red pen. And, uh, that wasn’t because I didn’t like them. It’s, I was trying to help them. You know, I taught physics and math and like, some of these problems would be like a page, two pages long. And it was like this one point right here. This is where, you know, circle that. That’s, you made one mathematical error here and it carried [00:29:00] all the way through.
Shoot. You know, let me help you. Or here’s the, here’s what you didn’t understand. Um, and that’s what the red pen, it’s meant to help not hurt, but, um, could you imagine like my students thinking, Mr. B must hate me. Did you see all the red on my page? You know, no, I, if I didn’t like you, I would just say, you know, here’s your letter grade, get lost.
You know, no, I want the next time this comes up on the exam or whatever, I want you to nail this. I want you to get this. So, um, yeah, that’s, that, that’s the bread pen kind of mindset Yeah. I’m trying to, trying to do online.
Jac: I love that you’d appreciate this as a father. My dad would always tell my sister and I, when we were younger, if we did something bad, he would always affirm. He’s like, I love you, but I, I hate the behavior that you did.
Right. So it’s like, God God loves us, but he hates the sin. So when you separate the sin from your identity, right, yeah. completely different response to it.
Tim: That’s exactly it. But because our cultural, the [00:30:00] worldview that we’re living in now, our behavior is our identity. It’s become one in the same thing. Um, and uh, and that’s where, so if you say to someone, well, I, you know, love the sinner, but hate the sin. They just hear the word hate you, hate me.
That’s what they hear. So sometimes those, I, I think that theologically that makes sense, what you just said, but when you try to say that to someone, it’s not gonna be received. Right. Because again, it requires someone to think in those terms. Okay, there’s behavior over here, there’s my actions, and then there’s, there’s who I am as a person.
And those are two different things. They’ve been collapsed in on each other, um, in our, in, in today’s kind of day and
Jac: Yeah, very true. The question is how do we separate them? Right? The golden Yeah. And this is, it is such a important thing. I think. Um, Christopher Yuan has a good book. He’s a friend of mine. He, um, he [00:31:00] wrote a book called Holy Sexuality, and Christopher’s testimony is unreal. Okay. Like, it’s, it’s amazing. Have you heard of Christopher?
Tim: Okay. So. Okay. You gotta, you gotta hear him speak, give his testimony.
He, um, I don’t wanna spoil it, but I’m, I’m going to, he, um, didn’t grow up as a Christian at all. In fact, he realized, he would tell you pretty early that he was, he felt different that he was attracted to, um, men and started like en engaging in that kind of behavior. In fact, he, uh, but he was also very academically, you know, smart and whatever.
So he was gonna become Aden dentist. He was actually in dental school, but he got kicked out because he was actually selling drugs, like tons of drugs, um, even to professors, which is kind of
wild. Um, he ended up, actually the FBI, I think they came and knocked on his, on his door one day. He had a ton of drugs on him and, uh, he went to prison.
And it was in prison where he, um, [00:32:00] discovered a Bible. It was actually. On the top of a trash can. And he picked it up, started reading it. Um, he’s, it is just a wild story. He, he found out in prison also that he was HIV positive, um, from living that, that lifestyle. And, um, ends up reading the Bible and talk about, okay, so then he goes to the pastor, or like the chaplain and the chap, like, he says, I’m, I’m gay.
What, so what, what do I do with that? And the chaplain’s like, kind of progressive Christianity. He’s like, don’t worry, we can reinterpret this. It’s not that kind of homosexuality in scripture. It’s something different. And so you’re, okay. Well, he keeps reading the Bible and he’s like, no, that’s not what it says here.
You know, that’s, it’s, I don’t agree with what the pastor said. And, um, anyways, he, he ended up getting out on good behavior. A couple other things. Um, he got, he got out early and, uh, he went to seminary and now he has,
uh, does he have a doctorate from, uh, moody Bible Institute? I think so.
And, uh. [00:33:00] Is wait to read that. so, because you don’t hear a lot of those stories.
Okay, here’s a guy who, by the way, still struggles with same sex attraction. Okay? He wouldn’t say that God just took away his attractions. Um, but it’s one of those things that he’s mortifying. Like it’s like this is a thing that I’m not en, I’m not engaged in that anymore. My life is fully I, and he doesn’t identify by his sexuality.
He’s like, God, God D doesn’t want me to be heterosexual. He would say, he said he wants my sexuality to be holy. And what that means for him is he’s gonna be a celibate man, you know, unless God changes his, you know, desires or whatever. So, um, anyways, powerful. You know, so here’s like, God, it, and we, we’ve, we’ve kind of talked about this a little bit, you know, how do you convince someone, and I think we be as, as we’re as persuasive and compelling as we can, but then we leave it to God.
And God is really the heart changer. He’s the mind changer. You know, you know the, the [00:34:00] transformation of the mind and heart. This is something the spirit does like no one else can. So I consider my job in, in discussions with people, it’s like, look, I’ll take care of my end of the thing. There’s a hundred percent kind of on me to do my best, but then there’s a hundred percent on God to do the rest, to do everything else.
You know? So, so, um, it’s like I’m just gonna do my best. It’s not a 50 50, it’s like literally ge. God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do. That’s a hundred percent on him. But as much as it depends on me, I’m gonna equip myself. I’m gonna do my best to be as persuasive as possible and then let God work. And, um, and he has, yeah.
Right. Plant the seeds, by the way. Um, so my boss wrote a book called Tactics, and it is, it was life changing for me. Um, and it’s all about engaging people, um, with questions and kind of a game plan and having conversations. It’s probably, [00:35:00] um, outside the Bible, it’s the, it’s the book that’s probably transformed my thinking the most.
In fact, the new book I’m writing, I’ve got his book in my mind, like, how can I write a book kinda like his, but for this topic? And, um, and he talks about your goal should be a stone in someone’s shoe.
That’s all it is. So when I’m on the airplane flying home from my event, I, you know, when this person starts a conversation, I’m, I’m probably not gonna get them to the cross and like, let’s say a sinner’s prayer or something, you know, whatever.
We’re, they’re not gonna convert next to me, likely, maybe they will, but my goal. Isn’t to save them. That’s God’s thing. My goal is just to put a stone in their shoe. And maybe we’re talking about, you know, where everything came from, or maybe we’re talking about, you know, the good that Christianity has accomplished in the world, or, you know, whatever it may be.
Here’s the little stone in your shoe. Something to think about. All right. I love that. That’s so good. Tim, you are giving me all these books. Now I’m gonna need to get another bookshelf because [00:36:00] I’m not gonna have enough room for all of them, but I’m excited. They sound like awesome ones.
yeah. Well, I, I, I would tell you, um, anyone I’ve recommended tactics to, and I recommend it all the time, um, usually send me a message later saying, where’s this book been on my life? I needed this. And I’m so glad I’ve read it. And, um, yeah, I tell like I, I’ll be speaking, um, at my daughter’s school this week.
My oldest is in, in high school now she’s in, in, she’s 14. Yeah, so 14, 12, and nine. And, um, I do quite a bit of work with the, the upper school. Um, speaking at Chapels, we kind of, we’re doing an apologetic series, so I’m there every awesome. um, doing a cool thing. Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow night we’re doing a thing.
Yeah. Actually we’re doing, talk about some of the stuff we’ve actually been talking about. Um, I got, I got something I’ve just been working on called, um, um, why Johnny Can’t Think Anymore. You know, how social media and AI are making us dumber and it’s just gonna be a short talk for parents tomorrow [00:37:00] night just to equip them.
Um, yeah, but I would tell those high schoolers, you can’t graduate this school if you haven’t read tactics. You, I’m not like, I will like block diplomas from being given out. You must read this. You know, kinda like CS Lewis Mere Christianity. Some of the, there’s some, there’s some works out there that are just really important stuff, um, that, uh, are worthy of our attention.
And, uh, I say tactics is one of those.
Jac: On the topic of works, Tim, so kind of an unrelated question, but not really because everything relates to what we’re talking about, Yeah. for someone who has experienced like a significant amount of suffering, and I shared something with you earlier that my family has been through over the past few months, um, you know, certainly suffering.
It makes us wrestle with God. Right. And I always say that, you know, when you wrestle with someone, you get really close to them. And that’s why I think some of the, the people who have experienced the hardest, you know, battles in life are often the closest to God. But there’s always that period of [00:38:00] time, I feel like, after that tragic event where you do doubt and you do wrestle with God and you do question your faith.
And you highlighted some reasons before as to, you know, just from a logical perspective, how we can prove the existence of God. But for someone who is in that season, who is really questioning their faith, um, really questioning, you know, why did God permit something so terrible to happen? Um, what would you say to them and, you know, perhaps what works or books might you recommend that could Yeah. that season?
Tim: Yeah. This is a really good question. It’s a hard question. Um, the way you put it, like, what would you say to someone and I, the, whenever I meet someone who’s asking about evil and suffering, one of the first things I’ll do is kind of ask for their story. Like, where have you experienced suffering?
Oftentimes as an apologist, I wanna launch into here’s the logical reason. Like [00:39:00] here I wanna answer the challenge from the intellectual side. Um, and I think that that misses the mark completely if that person is actually going through suffering right now. It’s kinda like, um, John Lennox, who’s a kind of a famous apologist,
um, he used this, he, he’s used this illustration.
This is great. A doctor would speak very differently to a medical student who’s asking about cancer than they would to a patient who has just been diagnosed with cancer, right? Those are two very different people. The one person just wants some intellectual answers. Hey, I’m just curious about this. Hey, in my own practice, I’m, you know, this might come up.
The person who just found out, Hey, I’m gonna be going, th I’m going through this thing, cancer. They need a different response. In fact, what they likely need right off the bat is, you got this, I’m here for you. I’m with you. It’s like [00:40:00] a hug. Okay. Um, versus I’m not like, the doctor’s not gonna hug the medical student.
You know what I’m saying? Like, that seems like inappropriate doesn’t work. It’s not what they’re looking for. So, and, and the problem with this question is, or the hard part of this question, I should say, is that oftentimes the intellectual stuff comes up when you’re going through it. I never thought about evil and suffering before, but now I’m going through it and I’m thinking, God, where are you?
So where do we start? Well, I, I look at scripture and I see it full of men and women who are crying out to God in their suffering. How long? Oh Lord, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me? You know, you have these, like, these, it’s amazing that the, the biblical authors are real people and they, when they struggle, they let you know, you know, there’s just some raw stuff in there.
Um, [00:41:00] man, the Bible is full of questions and it’s full of doubt and doubters. Okay? So if you’re doubting, just know you’re in good company.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: You could we go down the list now? Probably the most famous doubter in scripture, and I always do this with audience, I say doubting. And then they all say Thomas and I say, John the Baptist.
Okay. Because I’m, I’m trying to throw them off. I want them to remember this. Okay? ’cause then they, then they laugh. They’re like, wait, what are you talking about? John the Baptist has some pretty serious religious credentials. You know, he’s a priest, a son of a priest. He’s a prophet of God. He’s the cousin of Jesus, okay?
This guy, he’s is like, wow, that’s a pretty cool reputation now, um, he’s the guy who said, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. You know, he’s the same guy who, you know, when Jesus was baptized, he baptized Jesus. And then, you know, here’s a voice from heaven. This is my beloved son, with whom I’m well pleased.
So, like John had some, like we might call mountaintop experiences. You know, John is like, wow, I’ve experienced the Lord at [00:42:00] times. And then he finds himself in a Roman prison awaiting a probable execution. And he’s wondering, did I get this all wrong? What is going on here? The Messiah is supposed to set the captives free.
What am I doing in here? This doesn’t make any sense. You can see like, and so he’s going, he’s suffering in prison. And, and, and he responds with that question, are you the one or should we look for another? And this is where Jesus responds to him. Look, the blind are seen, the deaf are hearing, the lame are walking.
The good, the poor have good news preached to them. Ah. He’s like, I’m the guy. And then he turns to his disciple, Jesus turns to his own disciples and said, says, there’s arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. And I think he says that by the way, because they’re probably thinking, man, we thought John was a stronger Christian.
We thought he, you know, he’s doubting, wow. Like, you know, he’s lame or whatever, you know. But, um, [00:43:00] in reality. Jesus. He pays him the highest compliment, even after expressing his doubt. And I’ve talked to just so many people who have been in situations like you’re describing, where they’re suffering. They’re, they’re questioning God.
And they go to the church and their pastor says, you know, don’t do that. Stop it. Like, stop. Imagine, like, stop it. That’s like telling someone to stop breathing. You know what I’m saying? Like, that’s just like, um, because, and doubt is it, it just comes on you. It’s not like I wanted this. Uh, and so I think that’s the wrong imp that’s the wrong approach We treat.
Asking your questions like you’re confessing your sins, by the way, you should be confessing your sin. Like maybe that isn’t the right illustration because we ought to, but there’s the shame, there’s like the how dare you. Um, so I just wanna encourage people, like take a page at a John the Baptist book.
Express your doubt, like doubt out loud. Like go to God and [00:44:00] say, here’s the issue I’m having. Why is this going on? And sometimes you’re gonna get an answer. It’s gonna be like, John, John got his answer. But lots of us don’t, lots of us are just kind of in this period where it’s like, feels like, you know, maybe I’m, my prayers are hitting the ceiling and bouncing back down, you know?
But I would encourage people that God is working. God is there. There are things that I know about God from other, like we talked about, you know, evidence for God, whatever that tells me he is, he really is there. And then what I see, and oftentimes when it comes to suffering in the moment. It feels heavy, it feels unbearable.
But then you get statements like Paul saying this light, momentary affliction. And you think, Paul, what, what are you talk, how do you, have you never experienced suffering, Paul, when you read the suffering he went through, he, I mean, all kinds. I mean, he was beaten and stoned and imprisoned and shipwrecked.
I mean, just all kinds of stuff. [00:45:00] Rough life. He calls it a light momentary affliction. Why? Because he’s comparing it with eternity is preparing in us the eternal weight of glory. And what I would say is for people who are going through suffering, I wanna encourage them, your story isn’t done yet. You know, there isn’t.
And, and by the way, our story doesn’t even end at the grave. Like there is something, there is like this bigger story. And, um, and when you see your, when you see your pain. In light of eternity, something happens. The perspective is helpful, I think in changing that. Does it answer all the cha? No, but it’s, there’s something about that that says this, there’s something bigger going on.
And, and of course God uses these kinds of things, um, all the time. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to say to someone, Hey, God’s doing this. Um, because sometimes it’s, it just seems, [00:46:00] I don’t know it, it’s not always the right move. But I think there are times when we can look back, like, like Joseph in the Old Testament comes to his bro, his brothers come to him, they’re freaking out.
Like, uh, oh, this is Joseph and we sold him into slavery and all this stuff. And he says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. So God allowed this thing to happen so that I could keep all these people alive. God had a higher purpose. God is in control. God is above all of these things, and I’m just saying, if you’re suffering and there is no God, it’s pointless.
And it is, there is no hope. It’s completely hopeless. I would encourage people to go Lamentations, which is one of the, you know, saddest books in the entire Bible, um, and read Lamentations. And when you get to the exact middle of the book in chapter three, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.
They’re new every single morning. [00:47:00] Great is your faithfulness. It says, my soul, like my soul has to say it. And he says, therefore, I will hope in God. Lamentations is all about hopelessness. It’s absolutely hopeless. Jerusalem Judea destroyed. It’s over the, the people are done and Jeremiah reminds us. No, there’s still hope.
Jac: Yeah. Another question too for you, Tim, that just came to mind is rumination, right? And you’re talking about Joseph, so how, how does this relate? I was reading through Joseph this morning, and again, it’s. In my opinion, I think one of the best examples in the Bible of how free will and God’s sovereignty can coexist, right?
God worked through the brother’s sin to save, you know, to save many people. All that to say, you know, when someone’s doubting or ruminating rather over past decisions that they’ve made, how can they find comfort in God’s sovereignty? Right? And obviously, like we don’t, you know, hindsight’s 2020, we don’t have the benefit of being God knowing the future.
[00:48:00] Like you said before with the story analogy, like we only see a chapter. So for someone who’s wrestling with, you know, past decisions that they’ve made thinking, oh, like the outcome could have been different had I only done X, Y, or Z. And I’m sure you know, like those thoughts can be very tormenting, you know, especially upon the situation.
So what
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: you say to that person?
Tim: Yeah, I would, I would wanna encourage that person to rethink. How they think about decision making and God’s will. I think there’s, there’s this like idea, and these are good Christians that hold this. Okay. But it’s like, here’s, there’s God’s will and it’s this one path. Okay. And if I fall off that path, uh, or I take a different path, then I am, I’m screwed.
Like I, I what could have been kind of thing, you know? I actually don’t see decision making and God’s will in that way. I think there’s actually, it’s not just a path, but there’s a series of paths that are in God’s will. Okay. And [00:49:00] obviously if I’m committing sin, if I’m whatever, I’m outside of God’s will.
Okay? And there’s certain passages in scripture. It’s like it’s God’s will what? To, to flee from sexual immorality. Okay? So if I’m living in a sexual immor immorality, uh, immoral life, then that would be outside of God’s will. Gotta get back on God’s will there. But within God’s will, I think there’s lots of different paths.
Could I still be a high school teacher right now? Absolutely. I’d probably love that job, man. I love my students. I got to disciple them in a way that I don’t get to disciple now. I’m like doing this like online thing. I’m traveling. I was at a conference, 1600 students packed out. We had 600 in overflow.
Okay. Like, like every, like people say, nobody wants to go to Apologetics conference, forget about it. Kids are hungry for this stuff. Um, but it’s like, I, so I don’t get that kind of one-on-one for a long period of time. Discipleship, I’m doing something different. I’m, I’m, and God’s using it. I think I’m in God’s will now.
I, if I took a different [00:50:00] path as a teacher, that would’ve been God’s will as well. Okay. So, but there are, obviously, there are things that when we do something that, um, when. There can be regrets, there can be questions. What if, you know? Um, but I wouldn’t, like, I don’t think people should lose sleep over. Oh my goodness, I’m no longer in God’s will because I quit this job and now I’m doing this other job.
God, you, God, the sovereign God of the entire universe who is in control, isn’t going to be thwarted by, you know, you deciding, well, do we have, you know, fruit loops for breakfast, or do we have Cheerios? Now, I, I know that sounds like a very trivial example, but for God, that’s what we’re talking about here.
Okay? He is the guy who’s gonna accomplish his ends, and he does it with things like the cross. He does it with, with people like Joseph and the life he went through. There’s all kinds of ways. Now, do we often see it in our own life? [00:51:00] No. There’s a sense in which we just have, we have faith that God is going to, we trust by the way.
I need to say this before we, before we end here. Okay. Faith is not a blind leap in the dark, okay? Like real faith is trust. And, and when you, and oftentimes you trust someone more when there’s evidence. And so things like reasons and evidence are not against faith, okay? They’re actually, they can strengthen your faith.
I have more faith in my wife today than when I married her 17 years ago because we’ve, we’ve had this whole life together, you know, where she’s given me all kinds of reasons and evidence to trust her. So I want people to make sure they understand that’s what we’re talking about. But I, so I got faith in God.
I’m trusting God with my entire life. And even these decisions that often, you know, whether I go this way or this way, I just know God’s god’s with me and he’s gonna take care of me. And, uh, he’s gonna bless as long as I’m in [00:52:00] that
Jac: broad
Tim: know, not committing sin and, and
Jac: Right. Yeah. Who, I don’t know who said it, but it was like, love God and do what you want.
Right.
Tim: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it sounds like, um, so da, uh, uh, not David, Kevin de Young. Kevin De Young, who’s kind of a theologian, um, uh, pastor. He wrote a book, um, what was his book called, A really short book on God’s Will. And it’s, it’s really helpful. My boss, um, is actually, it’s probably gonna be his last book. He’s 75 years old, and he talks a lot about decision making and the Will of God.
Um,
Jac: I have a book on that I’m trying to pull, I’m trying to pull up who wrote it. St. Augustine said The Love God and do what you want. Uh,
Tim: Okay. That’s
Jac: God. Oh, Gary Friesen. Does that name
Tim: okay. There’s, there’s a Gary Friesen. Now, I don’t know if that would be my boss’s view or if he is responding to his view.
Um, I.
Jac: [00:53:00] Yeah.
Tim: So Kevin De Young, I’m just gonna, um, and then I’m gonna put in God’s will. And let’s see. It’s on my bookshelf, but
it’s
Jac: need to have like a conference with all of these people and I will attend and I will just like
Tim: okay. Here. Yeah, yeah. Seriously. Well, here’s the book by the way. It’s called Just Do Something, just Do Something is the title of Kevin d Young’s book. And it’s, uh, the subtitle is, let’s see, come on, Amazon, open up here for me. The subtitle, A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will. And by the way, we, at ARC Student Conferences, we have a speaker who tackles this question, and the room is always packed ’cause every student is looking for meaning.
They’re looking for purpose, and they’re looking for. God’s will if they, if they’re a Christian, they’re follow. It’s like, what is God’s will for my life? And this really is a liberating approach because I think it’s paralyzing. Shoot, if I, this [00:54:00] decision, the decision I’m gonna make right now about my job or about my wife, or about my whatever.
It’s like if, if I make the wrong one here. Then I just cascade this decision for the rest of my life. No, I could, I, I could have, I could have remained single. I could have, um, and there I could have done so much more ministry. I’m telling you, my family, there’s a lot of work when you got a family, man, it’s like, and I wanna, and I’m homesick.
I wanna be home all the time. So traveling at event to, to events, it’s like, man, just get me home. I’m get, I’m on the plane flying away thinking, Lord, like, what am, you know, I just wanna be home.
So I could have remained single, um, I could have married someone differently. And I think, uh, different and that would’ve been a different life.
And I don’t think I would’ve been outside of God’s will as long as that person was a believer, whatever. But, um, here, I, so that whole like, soulmate thing that comes from that other view, I think of, of decision making. Um, I think that I, I love my wife more than anything in the world, you know, and [00:55:00] I’m so glad she said yes to me, you know, like she made the decision to marry me kind of thing.
Um, and we have this beautiful, beautiful life together. So, um, but just do something that’s probably a, a great book to start with.
Jac: adding that to my Amazon cart as we speak. Um, yeah, and also too, I mean, kind of bringing our conversation back to the start, you
Tim: Hmm.
Jac: well and strong. I think another thing that I have learned a lot, um, another thing I’ve learned over the past few years with my mom, right? My mom’s journey in terms of medical decisions, right?
For treatments and whatnot. ’cause that certainly, you know, talk about decision making that’s, you know, it’s on a different level. Um, and I also have realized that, again, at the end of the day, like whether someone chooses. Treatment A or treatment B, like God is still in control of the outcome, you know, and all of our days were written in his book before one yet came to be.
And just remembering those verses, Tim has given me so much peace because we [00:56:00] are called to take active steps of faith. Um, and I don’t know what your philosophy is over like the closed doors or open doors, right? Like some people are like, oh, if the door is still open, if the light’s still green, keep going until there’s a red light.
I don’t know what your
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: but
Tim: Yeah. Well, I’ll give you just quickly, I think that, I mean, maybe those are, you know, God, if he closes this door, opens a window, you know, if it’s green, it’s green. Well, there’s sometimes there’s green lights, sometimes there’s red lights, and you’re like, I’m just gonna keep pushing and see if this thing turns green.
You know what I’m saying? Or sometimes there’s a green light and you’re like, but I don’t know if that’s my desire anymore. And by the way, I mean, you made this comment, it’s like. If you’re in God’s will and you’re doing what you wanna do, I think that’s an important piece. Like, I love my job. I absolutely love it, you know?
Um, and that’s why I keep doing it. But, you know, if God decides one day, you know, that’s, we’re not, that’s not the road anymore. If he were to take all this stuff away from me, I think I could be content, you know, on a, [00:57:00] on a tractor cutting grass, you know, at a sod farm or something, you know. In fact, there’s times where I long for that day, you know, like, that’s like my, that’s my like, okay.
You know, especially on these, like when you, when you’re getting back from a trip and you’re jet
lagged and you’re, and you feel like you’re mentally exhausting, you just like crave, like physical, I just need to do something with my hands now. Or I just, you know what I’m saying? I need to build something.
I need to, um, there’s, there’s that, that kind of comes in. Um,
Jac: No, I hear you. Well, who knows, Tim, maybe that day might be sooner than you think. Just finish up this next book you’re writing
Tim: Yeah. Well, I just keep saying Yeah, you, and that’s the thing, again, even like a decision like that, should I write a book or not? And it’s like, you know what, again, I think it’s in God’s will, whether I do it or not, you know? Now I think the gr I totally, and that desire is there right now. And so we’re kind of sprinting, you know, 15,000 words down.
You know, many more to go, but there’s a desire [00:58:00] there. And I see the need as well. And there’s, and it’s a lot of work. My life would be easier if I didn’t do it, you know? But man, I, I see the impact. This is happen. And people keep asking, you know, how do I think like you, how do I, I’m like, oh, think like Jesus, and here’s how he did it, you know, kind of thing.
So that’s, that’s the,
uh, that’s the goal there.
Jac: Awesome. Well, I’m very excited to read that book, Tim. We’re gonna have to have, like, like I said from the start, more conversations ’cause there’s
Tim: A, series.
Jac: we’re gonna, can we, can we have a series? This will be part one, but I’ll be conscious of the fact that you have a lot of time to devote to your book.
But, um, this has been so fun. Thank you for coming on. It was really a joy to speak with you. Um, but where can listeners find you and
learn more about your work?
Tim: Sure. Uh, well, let me, before I forget, this was a fun discussion. Okay. It, honestly, this feels like I’m chatting with an old friend. Um, not saying you’re old, but like, it’s, I didn’t even know. We, honestly, I didn’t even know we started. I was like, we were just like chatting from, from when we, and it was great.
You know, it was one of those [00:59:00] things that just was so organic and natural. So thanks for having me and being such a, a, a good host. Um, people can find me at, uh, stand to Reason, which is a ministry. Um, our website is s t.org, ORG. And by the way, my boss, I said, who wrote the book Tactics. I think everyone should read, um, if they’re interested in decision making in the Will of God.
That whole topic, he has a ton of articles and stuff on our website. Okay. Like, I’m not the expert in that area. I don’t speak on that at all. Actually. I’m curious about it. I’ve read a little bit, but, um, he, he would be the go-to guy on our website if you’re, if you’re interested. Um, I also. Have something called red pen logic with Mr.
B. So I used to be a full-time teacher. My, uh, you know, everyone called me Mr. B, Mr. Barnett. And um, I would use a red pen to respond to stuff. And we started doing that, responding to things on social media. So these aren’t my students. Okay. And I know that’s kind of like partly the offensive piece of this as I just pull a tweet offline [01:00:00] or a video and I’m kind of like, you know, doing the red pen thing on it and just trying to help people.
’cause people send me stuff every single day,
like maybe even during this interview. My inbox probably got a message saying, Hey, Mr. B, can you respond to this? And they share me. They share a, a TikTok or an Instagram reel or whatever. Um, and I’ll, you know, there’s a couple videos coming out this week so they can, if they go to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or any of those places, they can find Red Pen Logic and uh, I consider it the welcome Matt to Apologetics.
So if you’re just interested in apologetics, what that’s all about, here are these three to five minute videos and if you like that, then there’s lots of great stuff out there on the internet unapologetics that you need to check out.
Jac: Awesome. Well, I’ll be linking all of those in the show notes. And my very last question for you, Tim, and this is always my favorite one to ask, and that is, what does being well and strong mean to you?
Tim: Hmm. That’s a good question. Um, for me it is a holistic [01:01:00] thing. Um, I know I can’t function in my job intellectually if I am not feeding my body with the right stuff. Um, like, and my wife is just so amazing, man. She makes me eat all my veggies and all my, all my protein, like all the protein goals, you know, it’s in my
coffee. Okay. Like it’s collagen, all this stuff. It is like I, and
Jac: friends.
Tim: Yeah, she makes sure I have to hit a certain amount of protein and a certain amount, all that stuff. Um, it’s physical exercise. Um, now that’s harder, especially with the travel schedule that I have. The routine is hard and I love a routine, like I need a routine.
Um, and that always gets broken up with all the stuff that’s going on. So for me, it’s the physical side, it’s the health side, and then of course it’s the discipleship side. It’s the, I need, and, and we didn’t go into this too deeply, but finding someone who will disciple you. I mentioned my boss, whom I just love.
He’s actually my mentor. I should stop calling my boss [01:02:00] because that sounds like an employee employer relationship and that’s not what it is. He is literally the guy, um, that I go to with all of my questions. He’s my kind of spiritual, um, father. I have, like, my biological father is amazing. I love him more than anything.
Um, but there’s this, there’s a guy who just knows so much and I want to. I wanna be like him when it comes to apologetics. I’m 42, he’s 75. I got a little ways to go. I’m, you know, I, I don’t, I got, I got some growing to do. So find someone who can disciple you, um, is key and be a discipler, you know, anyone.
And for many of us, it’s our kids, but there’s friends and family and whoever that you can be discipling and that’s gonna help you grow spiritually as well. So, um, for me, yeah, being well and strong, it’s like the whole package. And I know when one side suffers, if I’m not in that gym, if I’m not eating right, the other side starts to suffer
too. So, [01:03:00] um, yeah, you, you do, you absolutely feel it. So, and then when you, when it’s all going well, it’s like, man, you feel like you could run a marathon and, you know, and then write a systematic theology book or something, you know, everything’s like just going so well. I’m thinking, what’s the equivalent of the marathon with theology?
Okay.
Jac: Think of a word tip. I love that. Awesome. Well, again, this has been so much fun. I’m really excited to share this with listeners and yeah, can’t wait to have another one with you, Tim. It’s gonna be a
Tim: Cool. Yeah, let’s do it. I.
Jac: Welcome to the podcast, how to Be Well and Strong. I’m your host, Jack Will and Genova, and I’m excited to have you join me as I speak with some of the leading figures in the fields of wellness, integrative medicine, and mental health. As we discover what it truly means to be well and strong in both body and mind.
Get ready to be empowered, inspired, and motivated about being an advocate for your own health.
In a [01:04:00] world where my truth has replaced the truth, how can Christians stay grounded in what’s real and biblical, especially when emotions and culture pull us in every direction? In this episode, I sit down with Tim Barnett, Christian apologist and speaker with Stand to Reason to talk about what it means to live anchored in truth, in a Feelings first world.
We unpack why truth matters more than emotion, how to share it with both clarity and compassion, and what it looks like to filter every belief and decision through the lens of God’s word. Tim also shares practical ways to discern the Holy Spirit’s leading from our own impulses. Engage hard conversations with grace and stay faithful when standing for truth feels costly or misunderstood.
If you’ve ever wrestled with balancing grace and truth or felt tension between faith and feelings, this episode will encourage you to think deeply, love well, and stay rooted in what’s true. Let’s get into it. Welcome to the podcast. You probably were like, why is this girl reaching out to me? Her background is integrative medicine, all things health and wellness.
You’re probably like, what does she wanna [01:05:00] talk to me about?
Tim: I did. I did think that. I honestly was like, did she email the wrong, Tim, this is an accident. Yeah, honestly.
Jac: Well, for your context, Tim. So this podcast originally centered around physical health and wellness, but over time I felt really called to expand beyond that and to dig deeper into emotional and spiritual health too.
And. Honestly looking at the world around us today, you know, especially with the state of our culture and our political climate here in the States, it’s pretty clear that emotional and spiritual confusion are at an all time high. And I came across you and your work and I was like, this is someone I really wanna have a conversation with.
And quite honestly, Tim, those are the folks that I’ve been bringing on the show. Right, okay. To discuss topics and ideas that I feel like I myself, have questions about and need to hear answers to. And I’m sure that if I have those questions, there certainly are a lot of other people as well. Yeah,
Tim: there’s so much, I mean, we [01:06:00] talk, I talk a lot about the spiritual side of all, you know, all this stuff.
But I’m also very curious about, you know, where, where you’ve been the last four years in talking about the physical health side of things. You know, um, I think that the church man, it’s so interesting. Like I look around the church and it’s like we are really adamant about. Really important things. But then when it comes to, you know, physical health, it’s like it takes a backseat.
You know, let’s, yeah, let’s, let’s disciple, let’s get into the word, let’s all this, all those good things. And let’s go to, let’s go to Kentucky Fried Chicken after I know, right. Church. You know what I’m saying? I’m like, why are we poisoning? Why, why, why are we poisoning ourselves? You know? Especially here
Jac: in the south, it’s, it’s very, uh, it’s been a change.
Tim: Paul says it profits a man little, right? Yeah. But it’s still profits a man. Physical, physical, um, health is still an important piece of this, you know, so true.
Jac: Um,
Tim: so [01:07:00] anyways, I, I actually am right in line. So when you reached out, I’m like, man, maybe this is God trying to say something to you, Tim, like, McDonald’s, stop it, you know, kind of thing.
Because, you know, I’ll be honest with you, when you’re on the road, um, I can imagine, which I travel, it is so difficult. I. Like I long to be home for so many reasons, but my wife’s home cooking is number one. ’cause it is so clean, it’s so healthy. You know, she’s putting things in my body that I need that, um, that I just don’t get anywhere else.
It’s just easier to, you know, stop at Chick-fil-A or whatever, you know? No, I know. After an event, it’s 10 o’clock I haven’t eaten, you know, it’s, you’re starving. Um, nothing’s open. Yeah. I mean, it’s just, so,
Jac: no, I can imagine. I know, I feel like, especially for me with podcast, like my mental acuity and focus is dictated by what I eat, right?
Mm-hmm. Even if it’s like a couple hours beforehand. So, totally relate, but kudos to you for recognizing that, you know, something you might need to work on. [01:08:00]
Tim: Yeah. Honestly, it’s like, even today I am like, okay. ’cause we built like the studios in the basement of our, of our home. It looks awesome. It, it’s, it’s so cool.
Like, we got our basement finish in the summer and we have a gym, um, that’s awesome. In the, you know, o other side of that wall. And it is like, it’s great, you know, and I don’t UI don’t use it as much because like, my wife’s down there every day, you know, she was in there this morning and, um. And, you know, ’cause like, like last night, I’m tired, I’m jet lagged.
I’m like, you have
Jac: kids too.
Tim: And then it’s like, even just to take them to drive ’em to school this morning, you know, I was like, okay, I gotta do this. ’cause she would’ve done it. But I’m like, I can’t. I gotta like, get back on schedule, you know? I can’t sleep in.
Jac: No, I can imagine. Um, so sweet.
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: Well, Tim, this is gonna be one of many conversations you and I will have.
This one happens to be recorded, but anytime you have any health questions offline, I’m here. Um, but just to, to dive right in, Tim. So one of the core messages I’ve heard you [01:09:00] emphasize again and again over the past few weeks since I’ve been, you know, listening to your stuff, is the importance of replacing bad thinking with good thinking.
Mm-hmm. So, to start us off, I would love to ask, how can we, and this is a bit of a loaded question, as Christians today be more discerning and filtering everything through God’s truth. Rather than through what culture tells us.
Tim: Yeah, this is a good question. Um, because a lot of times kind of on the flip side, what happens is we interpret God’s word through the culture.
Okay. And so it’s like, God can’t be saying that because I’m looking around at the world and they’re saying the exact opposite. So what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna reinterpret what God has to say here. Um, and, and so I think the first step is just to be aware of that there is a sense in which our [01:10:00] worldview, everyone has a worldview.
And our worldview, I think it was man, was it Francis Schaefer who says, um, some people catch. A worldview, like they catch a cold. Okay. It’s not something that you planned, it’s just it happened to you. Hey, you wake up in the morning, man, I’m not feeling so good. And, and I think that worldviews are kinda like that.
Um, if we’re not careful, we can just. Take on a bad worldview. Mm-hmm. And that typically, I mean, we could look around and talk about some of those worldviews, like there’s naturalism, like, man, supernatural stuff doesn’t really exist. You know, that’s something that, by the way, in the west, lots of Christians have to fight against that because our kind of like, there’s a skepticism we have against anything supernatural.
We just think about, oh, there’s God, there’s maybe some angels. That’s about it. You know, that kind of thing. So there’s, there’s a natural, there’s relativism. The idea that there is no truth. Mm-hmm. And so you have your truth and I [01:11:00] have my truth. And, you know, let’s just kind of live and let live as if, as if someone could just have their own truth.
Right. Um, and you can have your own Yeah. Jump in. Can I
Jac: stop you right there, Tim? Yeah. Just for, for listeners right now, can we just define truth, right? Yeah. As you and I see it, because I think, just like you said, sure. A lot of people are go, this is my truth. What’s your truth? Right? Yeah. And there’s a, a big issue with that.
Tim: Very good question. So a moment ago when I said, you know, that’s just true for you, that’s not true for me. Um, oftentimes. When people are talking like that, really what they’re talking about is their opinion or their preference. Okay? Like their likes and dislikes. You may like chocolate ice cream, someone else may like vanilla.
So vanilla would be their truth and your truth would be chocolate. Okay? But we all understand that’s, that’s preference stuff, that’s likes and dislikes. When we say truth, we’re talking about what corresponds with reality. Okay? Um, this is often called, by the way, philosophers call this the [01:12:00] correspondence theory of truth.
And it’s very, I mean, we all understand this, it’s what matches when a claim or belief matches up with reality. So if I said, um, I drive a red Ferrari. Okay. Now anyone who knows me knows that’s not true. Okay? I don’t make that kind of money, nor do I want that kind of car. You know, I would, you know, it would be probably become an idol for me.
I wouldn’t even want to drive it ’cause I wouldn’t want something bad to happen to it or something. But you would know that’s not true. Well, how do you know it’s not true? Well, you could just check my driveway. Okay? When you check the driveway, you would see that claim that I have a red frog doesn’t match up with reality.
Okay? So that’s what we mean by, we mean by truth. Um, sometimes people talk about objective truth, and that’s, that’s the kind of truth that is like I just described, corresponds with reality. It’s outside of whether I believe it or like it [01:13:00] or not, okay? So, for example, if I were to jump off the roof of my house, it is just objectively true that I will fall to the ground.
It doesn’t, and, and I, and my beliefs about it, I could believe really hard that I can fly. I could not like that. It’s gonna hurt when I hit the ground. All those things, you know, could be the case, but it doesn’t stop me from hitting the ground. Right? The truth of the matter is that gravity causes you to fall, you know?
So, um, so that’s what we mean. Now, sometimes people talk about subjective truth, and subjective truth is the idea of preferences and opinions.
Jac: Thank you for clarifying. Those are yeah. Great analogies. Um, so, so important. And with that too, Tim, so this is another bit of a loaded question. Mm-hmm. How can Christians lovingly push back against the idea that just like you said, truth is whatever works for [01:14:00] you?
Um, and interestingly, this past Sunday at my church, uh, this man, uh, John Cox, you’d actually like him. He has a podcast, never heard about him before up until Sunday. Mm. He had a great chalk on. Or he said something like, love comes two flavors, grace and truth, right? Love and limits. And he always talks about love and limits.
And I just, I, I love that. So how can we share truth in love? With those who don’t know truth. And there’s certainly verses in scripture too that highlight this. I mean, Paul writes, you know, to speak the truth in love and yeah. You know, Jesus says, like, those whom I love, I rebuke and discipline. So yeah.
When we love someone, right, like we discipline them like they both coexist, which I think people don’t necessarily understand. So Yeah. I mean, there’s just like this precipice on each side of, you know, if you truth too hard, like people get ashamed and go away. Yeah. Yeah. But on the other hand, if like we don’t speak truth right?
Then no one learns or understands. So how do we find that right balance?
Tim: By the way, I [01:15:00] think every parent knows truth and love, our truth and grace. Because there are times when I, I, I love my kids more than hardly anything in this world. Okay? Like God and then my family, you know? Mm-hmm. And, um, I would die for my kids.
That doesn’t mean that they get to do whatever they want. It doesn’t mean I affirm whatever they want. You know, if they want to eat candy before bed, it ain’t happening, you know? And that, by the way, is because I love them, not because I’m like angry with them or because I like hate them or something like that.
Okay. Even they might interpret that way. They may, oh dad, you’re so unfair. Like, if you love me, you would let me eat this. No, it’s because I love you. I’m gonna do what’s right for you. Okay. And what’s good for you. So we, I think parents understand that, um, that love. And the truth kind of come together, or truth and grace come together.
Jesus, full of grace and truth. [01:16:00] Jesus did it perfectly. We have to remember, we don’t, okay, we should strive to do our best. Um, and I think that for some people, and this is like a heart check time, okay, gut check time. There’s gonna be some of us, some people listening who they lean harder on truth. I think that apologists like me, that’s kind of our thing, right?
So we kind of like, we can be more aggressive and there are times, man, I’ve gotta check my own heart. I do this thing called red pen logic with Mr. B. We respond to people’s um, challenges online. And there are times where I will show my wife. A video that I just made. She sees all my stuff before it goes out, and she’ll tell me straight up, Tim, I don’t like the way you said that, or, I don’t like you look like you’re angry, or you, you know, and she will call me out on those things.
And there’s times where I’ve, and it breaks my heart because I’ve put all the work into editing the video and shoot it. Now I gotta go back to this studio in the basement and I gotta rerecord. And that’s happened before. Um, and so there’s some of us [01:17:00] who are like hardcore lean on the truth and we can get a little too harsh.
And then there are people who. Maybe are more touchy feely, um, more, they’re gonna lean on grace and love. And I, I almost, I know this sounds almost bad to say, but, um, they just need to be aware that there’s a liability. There’s a ditch on that side too, where you can compromise speaking the truth. Okay. So there’s a ditch on one side to like the truth without any love.
And then there’s all love and no truth. And Paul says, as you pointed out, um, in one Corinthians 13, speaking about love, um, and spiritual gifts, some other things, um, he says, love does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. So always those things are together, and there’s gonna be times where we fail at that.
I mean, I’ve failed at it many times and I’ve had to go to people, um, and ask for forgiveness, um, because, you know, we’re just, we’re all just trying to figure it out. Yeah. Um, so it is, it is [01:18:00] possible. And that should, that should be what we strive. To do. Um, I think practically, you know, I think we can know what’s true by just going, looking into God’s word and going, being discipled by the right people.
And but then the practical side, this is where it gets hard. Right. I was just gonna ask you where I’m now sitting down.
Jac: Yeah. Can we do like a real life situation here?
Tim: Yeah. Well, I’ve been in lots of situations where I’m talking to people who man are transgendered or, um, LGBT people in my own life, people online, you name it.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: And, um, one thing I do is try to put myself in their shoes. Okay. Um, what, what does it sound like to them to hear what I’m saying? And that kind of helps me adjust my own language. How am I gonna communicate this to you? Um, it helps to picture someone. Honestly, when I’m talking with someone online, they don’t know me from anybody and I don’t know.
And so it’s like, okay, I want to imagine that [01:19:00] I’m talking with that loved one. Who, um, who, and, and that personalizes it. I think, man, I think a big problem with our culture is social media and being online, and I know social media, it’s supposed to bring us together, make us more social. It actually makes us anti-social.
There are things that you and I would never say to someone, um, face to face that we say online. Okay. Like I’m, you know, you think of keyboard warriors, like, and there’s keyboard courage. There’s like, there’s this like, I’m gonna just let you have it caps where the caps, okay, caps lock is on, here we go, kind of thing.
Um, but if you were sitting across from me, I would never have that nerve, you know? So, um, I think it’s really helpful to. Imagine that person’s right there. Yeah. And I’m just telling you, I’ve had the sweetest conversations with people that I have read. Penned. Yeah. There was a, there was a, [01:20:00] I didn’t realize they were transgender.
They, this person was biologically male, um, but had been, had gone through like every surgery you could imagine. And so they had posted something online about, um, the Bible’s view of homosexuality. And I thought, actually there’s some real mistakes here. Okay. About, and, and so I, um, I just wanted to correct them.
I’m not trying to convince you. I’m just trying to say, look at, here’s what the Bible, just, here’s what it says. Okay. Um, about this topic. And, um, at first they, they were in the comments, like, really angry. So I reached out, direct message, said, I’m not attacking you. I love you. Um, and I, I just want to clarify.
What the Bible is really teaching on this point. And, um, by the end of the conversation, this individual had invited me. Next time I’m in their city. Wow. Let’s go for coffee. That’s amazing. I mean, it was just like this sweet thing Yeah. That you would never think would happen in, uh, where you just got, I just did a [01:21:00] response video against your thing and, but we’re still friends at the end of this.
Yeah. That’s the way it should be.
Jac: I love that, Tim, and I mean, that ones to my next question too, like, why do you think truth has become so offensive? You know, and I mm-hmm. I think too, like to your point of that story earlier, it just highlights the fact that people really want to be understood first, right?
Like even just whatever someone’s going through. Like this man also said on Sunday, he said that, um. Company like metabolizes pain, something to that effect where like if you’re with, when you’re with people, right? Like community, not company. Yeah, yeah. Community metabolizes pain. Um, and the whole point of that too is just to highlight the fact that like when you’re with someone who understands you, or at least like can empathize with you, it has the pain you’re going through.
So I feel like that could also be applied to like, you know, the offense that people take too at these hardcore, you know, beliefs that they have or quote unquote their own truths, right? Mm-hmm. If they, at first mm-hmm at least feel like they’re [01:22:00] being understood, even if it’s someone by the different, by an opposing view, they’ll be more inclined to hear what that person has to say.
Have you found that to be true?
Tim: I think that’s true. Um, I think that’s totally true. Um, there’s man, okay, so truth is one of these things, especially on issues like faith because it’s so personal, um, because of things like ident, because of the issues that we debate a lot in our culture are more identity issues.
Mm-hmm. It’s not just what I believe, it’s who I am. Yeah. So I am a Christian, uh, and or someone might say, I am gay or I am transgendered, or whatever. Okay. So, because these are deeply held beliefs when we, when we disagree, when we say that’s not true. All of a sudden that becomes super offensive. Look, we’re not logic machines, right?
As much as we, I’m, I’m working on a book right now [01:23:00] and I’m trying to teach critical thinking. I think there’s a, there’s a need for a book, a resource on helping people think critically taught, especially with Chat g
Jac: pt.
Tim: Oh my goodness. It is. What a time. It is. What a time, by the way, and we could do another conversation on this another day, but, um, when my book’s ready to come out, I’ve been thinking about this ’cause we outsource our thinking.
Okay. So just like I outsource my navigation, I, I get lost pulling outta my driveway. Okay. Honestly, I like some people have like this internal GPS system. My wife is one of those people. We can like be somewhere and she’s like, there’s North, and I’m thinking. How do you know? How do you know that? Where North this, like we can be inside.
It’s not even like she’s looking at where the sun is. She just knows. Okay. It’s like I’m watching geese, you know, I’m, I’m, and they’re flying in a V formation right now. Mm-hmm. To going south. And I’m thinking, how do you, you guys are better at this than like, I am. You know, like I can’t, if you said Tim go south, I would be in trouble.
So I use my GPS for [01:24:00] everything. I outsource my g, my navigation to GPS. We outsourced our memory to Google. Mm-hmm. Don’t need to memorize anything. It’s like at our disposal whenever I need it. Boom. Pull up Google. Yeah. And now we are outsourcing our thinking. People are going to chat GBT and say, give me an argument for this.
Here’s, oh, I got this comment in my Facebook. Okay. Respond to it. They’re not thinking anymore. And by the way, chat, GPT is not a reliable source. Okay? There’s an echo chamber filtering effect that happens. And uh, and I’ll just give you one quick illustration about that. So there’s this, um, Muslim apologist named Lily Jay.
She’s really popular blonde hair. And she’ll people have probably seen her videos, um, where she’ll say, Hey, chat, GPTI have a question. And then she’ll, um, ask it like, is in one word, tell me if Jesus is God. And then chat. GPT says No. Okay. Jesus is not God. Well, I gave the exact same prompt to my chat, [01:25:00] GPT, and it knows who I am, okay?
Because I’ve used it for a number of different things. And it said interesting. Yes. Wow. The exact opposite answer. Wait a second. I thought this was just giving me factual information.
Jac: Yeah,
Tim: well, it turns out it’s, it’s responding based off of who you are. Interesting. As a person, there’s, there’s a filtering or echo chamber thing happening, just like it happens on, you know, Instagram.
I would see you watch one video that’s like on some wild topic, you know, some think of a conspiracy. I shouldn’t say, I’m not gonna name one because I know people hold wild ideas. Okay. But just imagine like the most ridiculous conspiracy. You watch one video on that, it’s now you’ve seen, like, now you see like three of them, four of them, and all the one, all the counter arguments are filtered out.
Yeah. And now what’s wild is not only do you come to believe that based on what you’re seeing through your feed, but you become more confident about it because it’s like you’re, that’s [01:26:00] all you’re seeing now. It’s like, of course everyone must believe this. ’cause you’re not even seeing the other side.
You’re not seeing counter arguments. So yeah, that’s kind of a tangent there, but there’s, I think that you’re right, chat, GPT, social media, these things are, um, impacting how we think and it’s making us, um, for lack of a better word, dumber.
Jac: Yeah. To that point too, Tim, though, like. You were talking about, like, you know, chat, pt kind of like reaffirms all these beliefs you previously thought we had, therefore like mm-hmm.
It helps us dig our heels deeper into whatever, you know, argument or logic we’re, we’re adhering to. Yeah. How do we not get lost in that, in that like rabbit hole, right? Because emotions are very strong. And one thing I always say a lot on this podcast too, and I’ve had conversations about this, is, you know how facts are not, or feelings aren’t facts.
Yeah. And the importance of being discerning, you know, between like, what does God’s truth say versus what your emotions say? ’cause our emotions are fleeting. Right? One second to the next, they [01:27:00] change.
Tim: So, um, I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. It’s a good que good question. There’s a book, um, by a psychologist.
It’s named, uh, what’s the title? Um, the Scout Mindset, not a Christian author. Um, but she, she is writing about our motivations. Like there are times when I watch something on my feed and maybe it’s about Christianity, and because I’m a Christian apologist, I’m like, I want this to be true. Mm-hmm. You know what I’m saying?
Like, right. There’s something inside my heart that says, I wanna affirm this. In fact, she says, there’s often questions we ask when we come up against evidence, and there are two main questions that someone will ask depending on whether or not they want that thing to be true. Um, so the one question might be, can I believe this?
Can I believe this? So, um, I see some evidence. I see a fact, and it’s like, I wanna believe it. So can I. Mm-hmm. Well, yeah, look, it, there’s a reason right there. I can believe this, but when I don’t, when I, let’s say I watch an atheist video or a deconstruction video, and I’m like, [01:28:00] man, I don’t, I don’t agree with this.
I don’t like this. I’ll ask the question, must I believe this? Not can I believe it? Must I believe this. And when I ask that question, it’s kinda like, do I have to believe this? Well, actually, I can see a problem here, here and here. So now I’m like talking myself out of it. You know what I’m saying? So, so what I would say is when we approach this stuff, we need to be just aware that we have motivations, we have a bias.
There are times when confi confirmation bias is kind of what they call it in philosophy, um, can really be strong. You know, like Christians want Christianity to be true, and so there’s time for, they’ll run from counter evidence without even really looking at it or understanding it. Um, what I wanna do is my best to understand where that other person is coming from.
I wanna like. Not straw man. Their argument, which would be like a straw man, is like a, think of a scarecrow. I can beat up a scarecrow no problem. But if I had, like, if [01:29:00] there was a real man in this room, 200 pound, man, you know, I, I’d have a hard time, you know, taking them down. ’cause we, we, so, and we do that with arguments.
We kind of turn them into this straw man scarecrow thing so we can knock him over. I wanna take on a steelman if my beliefs are true. Mm-hmm. Then they should be able to stand up against the strongest arguments. Okay. And that’s, by the way, the real question not can I believe this? Must I believe it? The real question is, is it true?
Does it correspond with reality? Did Jesus really rise from the dead? I wanna know if that’s true. I know it makes me feel hopeful and, and good and all those things thinking about Jesus conquering death. Okay. But I wanna know if, do, did this really happen 2000 years ago? Did Jesus walk outta the, to. Is there good reasons to believe that?
I think there is. Yeah. Is it true that God exists? I think there’s really good reasons to believe that God exists from fine tuning in the universe, from the origin of the universe, from the origin of [01:30:00] life, from the origin of morality, from our consciousness. I mean, there’s all of these cool reasons to believe there’s something, uh, a prime reality out there that we call God.
Okay? Something bigger than ourselves, bigger than nature, all that stuff. So truth, I mean, going back to kind of what we were talking about, that’s what I, and we all have to guard ourselves. There’s just this like, there is, there is a, a need for us to think better. And that requires practice. That requires hard work Thinking doesn’t, good thinking doesn’t come naturally.
Bad thinking comes naturally. Yeah. And everyone knows that. Go on social media and you’ll see viral videos and viral posts that have hundreds of thousands of likes and you’re thi and it’s full of fallacies. Like anyone who has read like the fallacy detective or whatever, like a kid’s book on this stuff could see that’s not right.
And yet why did everyone like it? ’cause bad [01:31:00] thinking is natural.
Jac: Yeah. And
Tim: so what do we have to do? We gotta work hard at this. Just like you would work hard at playing the piano or any other musical instrument. You know, I was at a student conference the other day, just this weekend, and I asked a kid, um, he came up, they play the flute.
I said how flute is a hard instrument it looks like. So it look, it’s so small. It looks like, no, a flute just a blow in the thing is hard. Yeah, okay. There’s a way, a technique. And he’s like, yeah, yeah. I spent hours a week like learning how to play the flute and he, and now he’s good at it. Or an athlete, man, I’m watching the Jays, I’m the Toronto Blue Jay fan.
We got game seven coming. I mean, it’s, this is awesome stuff, but these guys work so hard to be at that level, and that’s what we need to do with our thinking. We don’t do that. We sit in front of Netflix and we end up taking all kinds of bad ideas and have no way to filter. We talked about filtering cultural ideas, right?
Yeah. We just take them, accept them, and we have no guard [01:32:00] against it.
Jac: Yeah, so true. I mean, yeah. Paul says, to take our thoughts captive, right? Yeah. And I look at the actual word captive, like that is an aggressive word, right? Like that’s so, amen. That’s a word that like you would see in like battle. So for him to use that’s word, like that implies that this really is a battle to take your thoughts captive.
And
Tim: it’s, yeah, it’s even more than, I mean that verse second Corinthians 10, man, that is my verses four and five. That’s like, I need to like you write verse write it on the walls. That is my verse honestly, when I sit down Yeah. To, um, to respond to a video. Like this is like the verse of red pen logic destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
That’s what I want to do. Yeah. I’m not destroying people. I don’t wanna destroy individuals. It’s their ideas that I’m after.
Jac: Yeah. And
Tim: um, but that is again, because people can’t think. Like they should, they interpret that as me attacking them, right? Yeah. [01:33:00] And so this, you, you asked the question before about being offended and I think that when you attack someone’s ideas, they take it personally.
They think it’s like an ad hominem attack. It’s you’re attacking the man. Right. And I’m not doing that. I actually love you and I’m trying to help you. This is where the idea of red pen logic comes from. Yeah. I was a teacher for a number of years and when I would take out, you know, the red pen? Oh yeah.
Yeah. So what we would do is I would take out, and I would mar, I would grade mark, you know, correct. My students’ work with a red pen. And, uh, that wasn’t because I didn’t like them, it was kind of trying to help them. Yeah. You know, I taught physics and math and like, some of these problems would be like a page, two pages long.
And it was like this one point right here, this is where, you know, circle that, that’s, you made one mathematical error here and it carried all the way through. Yeah, shoot. You know, let me help you. Or here’s the, here’s what you didn’t understand. Um, and that’s what the red pen, it’s meant to help not [01:34:00] hurt, but, um, could you imagine like, my students thinking, Mr.
B must hate me. Did you see all the red on my page? You know? Yeah. No, if I didn’t like you, I would just say, you know, here’s your letter grade. Get lost. Yeah. You know, no, I want the next time this comes up on the exam or whatever, I want you to nail this. I want you to get this. So, um, yeah, that’s, that, that’s the bread pen kind of mindset mentality Yeah.
That I’m trying to, trying to do online.
Jac: I love that you’d appreciate this as a father. My dad would always tell my sister and I, we were younger, if we did something bad, he would always affirm. He’s like, I love you, but I, I hate the behavior that you did. Right? Mm-hmm. So it’s like, God, God loves us, but he hates the sin.
So when you separate the sin from your identity, right, like you have a completely different response to it.
Tim: That’s exactly it. But because our cultural, the worldview that we’re living in now, our behavior. Is our identity. It’s become one and the same thing. Um, and uh, [01:35:00] and that’s where, so if you say to someone, well, I, you know, love the sinner, but hate the sin.
They just, they just hear the word hate You, hate me. Yeah. That’s what they hear. Yeah. So sometimes those, I, I think that theologically that makes sense, what you just said, but when you try to say that to someone, it’s not gonna be received. Right. Because again, it requires someone to think in those terms.
Okay, there’s behavior over here, there’s my actions, and then there’s, there’s who I am as a person. And those are two different things. They’ve been collapsed in on each other, um, in our, in, in today’s kind of day and age. Yeah,
Jac: very true. The question is how do we separate them? Right. The golden question.
Yeah.
Tim: And this is, it is such a important thing. I think, um, Christopher Yuan has a good book. He’s a friend of mine. He, um. He wrote a book called Holy Sexuality, and Christopher’s testimony is unreal. Okay. Like, it’s, [01:36:00] it’s amazing. Have you heard of Christopher?
Jac: No. I’m excited to check out his book now.
Tim: You okay?
You gotta, you gotta hear him speak, give his testimony. He, um, I don’t wanna spoil it, but I’m, I’m going to, he, um, didn’t grow up as a Christian at all. In fact, he realized, he would tell you pretty early that he was, he felt different that he was attracted to, um, men and starting like en engaging in that kind of behavior.
In fact, he, uh, but he was also very academically, you know, smart and whatever. So he was gonna become Aden dentist. He was actually in dental school, but he got kicked out because he was actually selling drugs, like tons of drugs, um, even to professors, which is kind of wild. Oh my gosh. Um, he ended up, actually the FBI, I think they came and knocked on his, on his door one day.
He had a ton of drugs on him and, uh, he went to prison and it was in prison where he. Um, discovered a Bible. It was actually on the top of a trash can, and he picked it up, started reading it. Um, it’s, it’s just a [01:37:00] wild story. He, he found out in prison also that he was HIV positive, um, from living that, that lifestyle.
And, um, ends up reading the Bible and talk about, okay, so then he goes to the pastor, or like the chaplain and the chap, like, he says, I’m, I’m gay. What, so what, what do I do with that? And the chaplain’s like, kind of progressive Christianity. He’s like, don’t worry, we can reinterpret this. It’s not that kind of homosexuality in scripture.
It’s something different. And so you’re, okay. Well, he keeps reading the Bible and he’s. No, that’s not what it says here. You know? That’s it. I don’t agree with what the pastor said. And, um, anyways, he, he ended up getting out on good behavior. A couple other things. Um, he got, he got out early and, uh, he went to seminary and now he has, uh, does he have a doctorate from, uh, moody Bible Institute?
I think so. And what a story. And, uh, it is, I can’t wait to read that. So you, because you don’t hear Yeah. A lot of those stories. Okay. Here’s a guy who, by the way, still struggles with same [01:38:00] sex attraction. Okay? He wouldn’t say that God just took away his attractions. Um, but it’s one of those things that he’s mortifying.
Like it’s like this is a thing that I’m not eng, I’m not engaged in that anymore. My life is fully I, and he doesn’t identify by his sexuality. He’s like, God, God. D doesn’t want me to be heterosexual. He would say, he said he wants my sexuality to be holy. And what that means for him is he’s gonna be a celibate man, you know, unless God changes his, you know, desires or whatever.
So, um, anyways, powerful. You know, so here’s like, God, and we, we’ve, we’ve kind of talked about this a little bit, you know, how do you convince someone, and I think we be as, as we’re as persuasive and compelling as we can, but then we leave it to God. And God is really the heart changer. He’s the mind changer.
You know, you know the, the transformation of the mind and heart. This is something the spirit does like no one else can. So I consider my [01:39:00] job in, in discussions with people, it’s like, look, I’ll take care of my end of the thing. There’s a hundred percent kind of on me to do my best, but then there’s a hundred percent on God to do the rest, to do everything else.
You know? I love that. So, so, um, it’s like I’m just gonna do my best. It’s not a 50 50, it’s like literally G God’s gonna do what God’s gonna do. That’s a hundred percent on him.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: But as much as it depends on me, I’m gonna equip myself, I’m gonna do my best to be as persuasive as possible, and then let God.
Work. Yeah. And, um,
Jac: you plant the seeds and he
Tim: has Yeah, that’s right. Plant the seeds, by the way. Um, there, so my boss wrote a book called Tactics, and it is, it was life changing for me. Um, and it’s all about engaging people, um, with questions and kind of a game plan and having conversations. It’s probably, um, outside the Bible, it’s the, it’s the book that has probably transformed my thinking the most.
In fact, the new book I’m writing, I’ve got his book in my mind, like, how [01:40:00] can I write a book kinda like his, but for this topic? And, um, and he talks about your goal should be a stone in someone’s shoe. That’s all it is. So when I’m on the airplane flying home from my event, I, you know, when this person starts a conversation, I’m, I’m probably not gonna get them to the cross and like, let’s say a sinner’s prayer or something, you know, whatever.
We’re, they’re not gonna convert next to me, likely, maybe they will, but my goal. Isn’t to save them. That’s God’s thing. My goal is just to put a stone in their shoe and maybe we’re talking about, you know, where everything came from, or maybe we’re talking about, you know. The good that Christianity has accomplished in the world, or, you know, whatever it may be.
Here’s a little stone in your shoe. Something to think about. Yeah. All right.
Jac: I love that.
Tim: Yeah.
Jac: That’s so good. Tim, you’re giving me all these books. Now I’m gonna need to get another bookshelf because I’m not gonna have enough room for all that, but I’m excited. They sound like awesome ones.
Tim: Yeah. Well, I, I, I would tell you, um, anyone I’ve recommended [01:41:00] tactics to, and I recommend it all the time, um.
Usually send me a message later saying, where’s this book been on my life? Yeah. I needed this. And I’m so glad I’ve read it. And um, yeah, I tell like I, I’ll be speaking, um, at my daughter’s school this week. My oldest is in, in high school now. She’s 14. I was gonna ask how old old they were.
Jac: Okay. Yeah.
Tim: So 14, 12, and nine.
And, um, I do quite a bit of work with them. The upper school. Um, speaking at Chapels, we kind of, we’re doing an apologetic series, so I’m there every month. That’s awesome. Um, can I come do a cool thing quick? Yeah. Yeah. Tomorrow a quick flight. Tomorrow we’re doing a thing. Yeah. Actually we’re gonna talk about some of the stuff we’ve actually been talking about.
Um, I got, I got something I’ve just been working on called, um, um, why Johnny Can’t Think anymore. You know, how social media and AI are making us dumber and it’s just gonna be a short talk for parents tomorrow night just to equip them. Um, yeah, but I would tell those high schoolers, you can’t graduate this school if you haven’t read tactics.[01:42:00]
I’m not like, I will like block diplomas from being given out. You must read this, you know? That’s awesome. Kinda like CS Lewis Mere Christianity. Some of the, there’s some, there’s some works out there that are just really important stuff, um, that. Uh, are worthy of our attention.
Jac: Yeah. And
Tim: uh, I say tactics is one of those
Jac: on the topic of works, Tim, so kind of an unrelated question, but not really because everything relates to what we’re talking about.
But yeah, for someone who has experienced like a significant amount of suffering and I shared something with you earlier that my family has been through over the past few months, um, you know, certainly suffering. It makes us wrestle with God. Right. And I always say that, you know, when you wrestle with someone, you get really close to them.
And that’s why I think some of the, the people who have experienced the hardest, you know, battles in life are often the closest to God. But there’s always that period of time, I feel like, after that tragic event where you do doubt and you do wrestle with God and you do question your faith. And [01:43:00] you highlighted some reasons before as to, you know, just from a logical perspective, how we can prove the existence of God.
But for someone who is in that season, who is really questioning their faith, um, yeah, really questioning, you know, why did God permit something so terrible to happen? Um. What would you say to them and, you know, perhaps what works or books might you recommend that could help them through that season?
Tim: Yeah, this is a really good question.
It’s a hard question. Um, the way you put it, like, what would you say to someone and I, the, whenever I meet someone who’s asking about evil and suffering, one of the first things I’ll do is kind of ask for their story. Like, where have you experienced suffering? Oftentimes as an apologist, I wanna launch into here’s the logical reason.
Like here I wanna answer the challenge from the intellectual side. Um, and I think that that misses the mark completely if that [01:44:00] person is actually going through suffering right now. It’s kinda like, um, John Lennox, who’s a kind of a famous apologist, um, I’ve heard of him. He used this, he, he’s used this illustration.
This is great. A doctor would speak very differently to a medical student who’s asking about cancer
Jac: mm-hmm. Than
Tim: they would to a patient who has just been diagnosed with cancer. Mm-hmm. Right? Those are two very different people. The one person just wants some intellectual answers. Hey, I’m just curious about this.
Hey, in my own practice, I’m, you know, this might like come up. The person who just found out, Hey, I’m gonna be going, th I’m going through this thing, cancer. They need a different response. In fact, what they likely need right off the bat is, you got this, I’m here for you. I’m with you. It’s like a hug. Okay.
Um, versus I’m not like, the doctor’s not gonna hug the medical student. You know what I’m saying? Like, that seems like [01:45:00] inappropriate doesn’t work. It’s not what they’re looking for. So, and, and the problem with this question is, or the hard part of this question, I should say, is that oftentimes the intellectual stuff comes up when you’re going through it.
I never thought about evil and suffering before, but now I’m going through it and I’m thinking, God, where are you?
Jac: Right?
Tim: So where do we start? Well, I, I look at scripture and I see it full of men and women who are crying out to God in their suffering. How long, oh Lord, my God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
Mm-hmm. You know, you have these, like, these, it’s amazing that the, the biblical authors are real people and they, when they struggle, they let you know. Yeah. You know, there’s just some raw stuff in there. Um, man, the Bible is full of questions and it’s full of doubt and doubters. Okay. Yeah. So if you’re doubting, just know [01:46:00] you’re in good company.
Jac: Yeah. You
Tim: know, you, could we go down the list now? Probably the most famous doubter in scripture, and I always do this with audience, I say doubting, and then they all say Thomas and I say, John the Baptist. Okay. Because I’m, I’m trying to throw them off. I want them to remember this. Okay. ’cause then they, then they laugh.
They’re like, wait, what are you talking about? John the Baptist has some pretty serious religious credentials. You know, he’s a priest, a son of a priest. Mm-hmm. He’s a prophet of God. He’s the cousin of Jesus. Okay? This guy, he’s is like, wow, that’s pretty cool reputation. Now. Um, he’s the guy who said, behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
You know, he’s the same guy who, you know, when Jesus was baptized, he baptized Jesus. And then, you know, here’s a voice from heaven. This is my beloved son, with whom I’m well pleased. So, like John had some, like we might call mountaintop experiences. You know, John is like, wow, I’ve experienced the Lord at times.
And then he finds himself in a Roman prison awaiting a probable execution. And he’s wondering, [01:47:00] did I get this all wrong? What is going on here? The Messiah is supposed to set the captives free. What am I doing in here? This doesn’t make any sense. You can see like, and so he’s going, he’s suffering in prison.
And, and, and he responds with that question, are you the one or should we look for another? And this is where Jesus responds to him. Look, the blind are seen, the deaf are hearing, the lame are walking. The good, the poor have good news preached to them. Ah. He’s like, I’m the guy. And then he turns to his disciple, Jesus turns to his own disciples and said, says, there’s arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.
And I think he says that by the way, because they’re probably thinking, man, we thought John was a stronger Christian. We thought he, you know, he’s doubting, wow. Like, you know, he’s lame or whatever, you know. But, um, in reality, Jesus, he pays him the highest compli. Even after expressing his doubt, and I’ve talked to just so many [01:48:00] people who have been in situations like you’re describing, where they’re suffering.
They’re, they’re questioning God, and they go to the church and their pastor says, you know, don’t do that. Stop it. Like, stop, imagine. Like, stop it. That’s like telling someone to stop breathing. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? Like, that’s just like, um, because doubt is it, it just comes on you. Yeah. It’s not like I wanted this.
Uh, and so I think that’s the wrong imp that’s the wrong approach We treat. Asking your questions like you’re confessing your sins, by the way, you should be confessing your sin. Like maybe that isn’t the right illustration because we ought to, but there’s the shame, there’s like the how dare you. Um, so I just wanna encourage people, like take a page at a John the Baptist book.
Yeah. Express your doubt. Like doubt out loud. Like go to God and say, here’s the issue I’m having. Why is this going on? And sometimes you’re gonna get an answer. It’s gonna be like John, John got his answer. Yeah. But [01:49:00] lots of us don’t, lots of us are just kind of in this period where it’s like, feels like, you know, maybe I’m, my prayers are hitting the ceiling and bouncing back down, you know?
But I would encourage people that God is working. God is there, there are things that I know about God from other, like we talked about, you know, evidence for God, whatever. Yeah. That tells me he is, he really is there. And then what I see, and oftentimes when it comes to suffering in the moment. It feels heavy, it feels unbearable.
But then you get statements like Paul saying this light, momentary affliction. And you think, Paul, what, what are you talk, how do you, have you never experienced suffering, Paul, when you read the suffering he went through, he, I mean, all kinds. I mean, he was beaten and stoned and imprisoned and shipwrecked.
I mean, just all kinds of stuff. Rough life. He calls it a light momentary affliction. Why? Because he’s comparing it with eternity is [01:50:00] preparing in us the eternal weight of glory. And what I would say is for people who are going through suffering, I wanna encourage them, your story isn’t done yet. You know, there isn’t.
And, and by the way, our story doesn’t even end at the grave. Like there is something, there is like this bigger story. And, um, and when you see your, when you see your pain. In light of eternity, something happens. The perspective is helpful, I think.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: In changing that, does it answer all the chall? No, but it’s, there’s something about that that says this, there’s something bigger going on.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: And, and of course God uses these kinds of things, um, all the time. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to say to someone, Hey, God’s doing this. Um, because sometimes it’s, it just seems, I don’t know, it’s not always the right move, but I think there are times when we can look back, like, like Joseph in the Old Testament [01:51:00] comes to his bro, his brothers come to him, they’re freaking out.
Like, uh, oh, this is Joseph and we sold him into slavery and all this stuff. And he says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. Yeah. So God allowed this thing to happen. That I could keep all these people alive. God had a higher purpose. God is in control. Yeah. God is above all of these things.
And I’m just saying, if you’re suffering and there is no God, it’s pointless.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: And it is. There is no hope. It’s completely hopeless. I would encourage people to go Lamentations, which is one of the, you know, saddest books in the entire Bible, um, and read Lamentations. And when you get to the exact middle of the book in chapter three, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
Yeah. His mercies never come to an end. They are new every single morning. Yeah. Great. Is your faithfulness. It says, my soul, like my soul has to say it. And he says, therefore, I will hope in God. Lamentations is [01:52:00] all about hopelessness. It’s absolutely hopeless. Jerusalem Judea destroyed. It’s over. The people are done and Jeremiah reminds us.
No, there’s still hope.
Jac: Yeah. Another question too for you, Tim, that just came to mind is rumination, right? Yeah. And you’re talking about Joseph, so how, how’s this really? I was reading through Joseph this morning, and again, it’s, in my opinion, I think one of the best examples in the Bible of how free will and God’s sovereignty can coexist, right?
Yeah. God work through the brother’s sin to save. Mm-hmm. You know, to save many people. All that to say, you know, when someone’s doubting or ruminating rather over past decisions that they’ve made. Yeah. How can they find comfort? God sovereignty. Right. And obviously like we don’t, you know, hindsight’s 2020, we don’t have the benefit of being God knowing the future, like you said before.
Yeah. With the story analogy, like we only see a chapter. So for someone who’s wrestling with, you know, past decisions that they’ve made [01:53:00] thinking, oh, like the outcome could have been different had I only done X, Y, or Z. And I’m sure, you know, like those thoughts can be very tormenting. Oh, sure. You know, especially upon the situation.
So what,
Tim: yeah.
Jac: What would you say to that person?
Tim: Yeah, I would, I would wanna encourage that person to rethink how they think about decision making and God’s will. I think there’s, there’s this like idea, and these are good Christians that hold this. Okay. But it’s like, here’s, there’s God’s will and it’s this one path.
Okay. And if I fall off that path, uh, or I take a different path, then I am, I’m screwed. Like I, I, what could have been kind of thing, you know, I actually don’t see. Decision making and God’s will in that way. I think there’s actually, it’s not just a path, but there’s a series of paths that are in God’s will.
Okay? And obviously if I’m committing sin, if I’m whatever, I’m outside of God’s will. Okay? And there’s certain passages in scripture, it’s like it’s God’s will what? To, [01:54:00] to flee from sexual immorality. Okay? So if I’m living in a sexual, IM immorality, uh, immoral life, then that would be outside of God’s will gotta get back on God’s will there.
But within God’s will, I think there’s lots of different paths. Could I still be a high school teacher right now? Absolutely. I’d probably love that job, man. I love my students. I got to disciple them in a way that I don’t get to disciple now I’m like doing this like online thing. I’m traveling. I was at a conference, 1600 students packed out.
We had 600 in overflow. Okay? Like, like every, like people say, nobody wants to go to a Apologetics conference. Forget about it. Kids are hungry for this stuff. Um, but. It’s like I, so I don’t get that kind of one-on-one for a long period of time. Discipleship. I’m doing something different. Yeah. I’m, I’m, and God’s using it.
I think I’m in God’s will now. I, if I took a different path as a teacher, that would’ve been God’s will as well. Okay. So, but there are, obviously, there are things that when we do [01:55:00] something that um, we, there can be regrets, there can be questions. What if, you know? Um, but I wouldn’t, like, I don’t think people should lose sleep over, oh my goodness, I’m no longer in God’s will because I quit this job and now I’m doing this other job.
God, you, God, the sovereign God of the entire universe who is in control, isn’t going to be thwarted. Right by, you know, you deciding well, do we have, you know, fruit loops for breakfast or do we have Cheerios? Now, I, I know that sounds like a very trivial example, but for God, that’s what we’re talking about here.
Okay. Yeah. He is the guy who’s gonna accomplish his ends, and he does it with things like the cross. He does it with, with people like Joseph and the life he went through. There’s all kinds of ways. Now do we often see it in our own life? No. There’s a sense in which we just have, we have faith that God is going to, we trust.
By the way, I need to say this before we, before we end here. Okay. [01:56:00] Faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Okay? Like real faith is trust. And, and when you, and. Oftentimes you trust someone more when there’s evidence. And so things like reasons and evidence are not against faith. Okay. They’re actually, they can strengthen your faith.
I have more faith in my wife today than when I married her 17 years ago because we’ve, we’ve had this whole life together, you know, where she’s given me all kinds of reasons and evidence to trust her. So I want people to make sure they understand that’s what we’re talking about. But I, so I got faith in God.
I’m trusting God with my entire life and even these decisions that often, you know, whether I go this way or this way, yeah. I just know God’s god’s with me and he’s gonna take care of me. And, uh, he’s gonna bless as long as I’m in that broad will, you know? Yeah. Not committing sin and, and whatever,
Jac: right?
Yeah. Who, I don’t know who said it, but it was like, love God and do what [01:57:00] you want, right?
Tim: Yeah. Do you know I’m talking
Jac: about like, who, who said that?
Tim: Well, it sounds like, um, so da, uh, uh, not David, Kevin de Young. Kevin De Young, who’s kind of a theologian, um, uh, pastor. He wrote a book, um, what was his book called?
A really short book on God’s Will. And it’s, it’s really helpful. My boss, um, is actually, it’s probably gonna be his last book. He’s 75 years old and he talks a lot about decision making in the Will of God. Um, he’s, I have a book on that. He,
Jac: you do pull, I’m trying to pull up who wrote it. St. Augustine said The Love God and do what you want.
Uh, decision making in the Will of God. Oh, Gary Friesen. Does that name Ring Bell? Okay. There’s,
Tim: there’s a Gary Friesen. Now, I don’t know if that would be my boss’s view or if he is responding to his view.
Jac: I’m so curious.
Tim: Um, yeah, so Kevin De Young, I’m just gonna, um. And then I’m gonna put in God’s will. And let’s see, it’s on my [01:58:00] bookshelf, but it’s, uh, Tim, we need to
Jac: have like a conference with all of these people and I will attend and I will just like be a sponge.
Okay.
Tim: Here. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. Well, here’s the book by the way. It’s called Just Do Something.
Jac: Okay.
Tim: Just do something. Is the title Okay. Of Kevin d Young’s book. And it’s, uh, the subtitle is, let’s see, come on, Amazon, open up here for me. The subtitle, A Liberating Approach to Finding God’s Will. And by the way, we, at our student conferences, yeah.
We have a speaker who tackles this question and the room is always packed. ’cause every student is looking for meaning. They’re looking for purpose. Yeah. And they’re looking for. God’s will if they, if they’re Christian, they’re follow. It’s like, what is God’s will for my life? And this really is a liberating approach.
Yeah. Because I think it’s paralyzing. Shoot, it is I this decision. Yeah. The decision I’m gonna make right now about my job or about my wife, or about my whatever it’s like. If, if I make the wrong one here. [01:59:00]
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: And then I just cascade this decision for the rest of my life. No, I could, I, I could have, I could have remained single.
I could have, um, and there were, I could have done so much more ministry. I’m telling you, my family, there’s a lot of work when you got a family, man, it’s like, and I wanna, and I’m homesick. I wanna be home all the time. So traveling at event to, to events, it’s like, man, just get me home. I’m get, I’m on the plane flying away thinking, Lord, like, what am, you know, I just wanna be home.
So I could have remained single, um, I could have married someone differently. And I think, uh, different and that would’ve been a different life, and I don’t think I would’ve been outside of God’s will as long as that person was a believer, whatever. Yeah. But, um, here, I, so that whole like, soulmate thing that comes from that other view I think of, of decision making.
Jac: Yeah.
Tim: Um, I think that I, I love my wife more than anything in the world, you know, and I’m so glad she said yes to me, you know, like she made the decision to marry me Yeah. Kind of thing. Um, and we have this beautiful, beautiful life [02:00:00] together. So, um, but just do something that’s probably, yeah. A great book to start with.
Um,
Jac: adding that to my Amazon cart as we speak. Um, yeah. And also too, I mean, kind of bringing our conversation back to the start. You know, the well and strong. I think another thing that I have learned a lot, um, another thing I’ve learned over the past few years with my mom, right? My mom’s journey in terms of medical decisions, right?
For treatments and whatnot. ’cause that certainly, you know, talk about decision making that’s, you know, it’s on a different level. Um, yeah. And I also have realized that again, at the end of the day, like whether someone chooses treatment A or treatment B, like God is still in control of the outcome. Totally know all of our days were written in his book before one yet came to be.
And just remembering those verses that’s right. Has given me so much peace because we are called to take active steps of faith. Um, and I don’t know what your philosophy is over like the closed doors or open doors, right? Like some people are like, oh, if the door is still open, if the [02:01:00] light’s still green, keep going until there’s a red light.
I don’t know what your thoughts are on that, but Yeah.
Tim: Yeah. Well, I’ll give you just quickly, I think that, I mean, maybe those are, you know, God, if he closes this door, opens a window, you know, if it’s green, it’s green. Well, there’s sometimes there’s green lights, sometimes there’s red lights, and you’re like, I’m just gonna keep pushing and see if this thing turns green.
You know what I’m saying? Yeah. Or sometimes there’s a green light and you’re like, but I don’t know if that’s my desire anymore. And by the way, I mean, you made this comment, it’s like, if you’re in God’s will and you’re doing what you wanna do, I think that’s an important piece. Like, I love my job. I absolutely love it, you know?
Um, and that’s why I keep doing it. But, you know, if God decides one day, you know, that’s, we’re not, that’s not the road anymore. Yeah. If you were to take all this stuff away from me. I think I could be content, you know, on a, on a tractor cutting grass, you know, at a sod farm or something, you know. In fact, there’s times where I long for that day, you know, like, [02:02:00] that’s like my, that’s my like, okay.
You know, especially on these, like when you, when you’re getting back from a trip and you’re, I’m sure, and you’re, and you feel like you’re mentally exhausting, you just like crave, like physical, I just need to do something with my hands now. Yep. Or I just, you know what I’m saying? I need to build something.
I need to, um, there’s, there’s that, that kind of comes in. Um. Yeah.
Jac: No, I hear you. Well, who knows, Tim, maybe that day might be sooner than you think. Just finish up this next book you’re writing and then Yeah. Well, I
Tim: just keep saying, yeah, you, and that’s the thing again, even like a decision like that, should I write a book or not?
Yeah. And it’s like, you know what I, again, I think it’s in God’s will, whether I do it or not. Yeah. You know, he plans those desires. Totally. And that desire is there right now. And so we’re kind of sprinting, you know, 15,000 words down. You know, many more to go, but. There’s the desire there and I see the need as well.
And there’s, and it’s a lot of work. My life would be easier if I didn’t do it, you know? Yeah. But man, I, I see [02:03:00] the impact this is having and people keep asking, you know, how do I think like you, how do I, I’m like, oh, think like Jesus, and here’s how he did it, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. So that’s, that’s the, uh, that’s the goal there.
Jac: Awesome. Well, I’m very excited to read that book, Tim. We’re gonna have to have, like, like I said from the start, more conversations ’cause there’s a series so much We’re can we, can we have a series? This will be part one, but I’ll be Yeah. Conscious of the fact that you have a lot of time to devote to your book.
But, um, this has been so fun. Thank you for coming on. It was really a joy to speak with you. Um, but where can listeners find you and learn more about. Your work?
Tim: Sure. Uh, well, let me, before I forget, this was a fun discussion. Okay. It honestly, this feels like I’m chatting with an old friend. Um, old. That’s why I love podcasting.
Not saying you’re old, but like it’s, I didn’t even know. We, honestly, I didn’t even know we started. I was like, we were just like chatting from, from when we, and it was great. You know, it was one of those things that just was so organic and natural. So thanks for having me and being such a, a, a good host.
Um, people can find me [02:04:00] at, uh, stand to Reason, which is a ministry. Um, our website is s t.org, ORG. And by the way, my boss, I said, who wrote the book Tactics. I think everyone should read, um, if they’re interested in decision making in the Will of God. That whole topic, he has a ton of articles and stuff on our website.
Okay, awesome. Like, I’m not the expert in that area. I don’t speak on that at all, actually. I’m curious about it. I’ve read a little bit, but, um, he, he would be the go-to guy on our website if you’re, if you’re interested. Um, I also. Have something called Red pen logic with Mr. B. So I used to be a full-time teacher.
My, uh, you know, everyone called me Mr. B, Mr. Barnett. And um. I would use a red pen to respond to stuff. And we started doing that, responding to things on social media. So these aren’t my students. Okay. And I know that’s kind of like partly the offensive piece of this as I just pull a tweet offline or a video and I’m kind of like, you know, doing the red pen thing on it and just trying to help people.
’cause people send me stuff every single day. [02:05:00] I’m sure, like maybe even during this interview my inbox probably got a message saying, Hey Mr. B, can you respond to this? And they share me. They share a, a TikTok or an Instagram reel or whatever. Um, and I’ll, you know, there’s a couple videos coming out this week so they can, if they go to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or any of those places, they can find Red pen logic.
Awesome. And, uh, I consider it the welcome mat to Apologetics. So if you’re just interested in apologetics, what that’s all about, here are these three to five minute videos. And if you like that, then there’s lots of great stuff out there on the internet. Unapologetics that you need to check out.
Jac: Awesome.
Well, I’ll be linking all of those in the share notes. And my very last question for you, Tim, and this is always my favorite one to ask, and that is, what does being well and strong mean to you?
Tim: Hmm. That’s a good question. Um, for me it is a holistic thing. Um, I know I can’t function in my job intellectually if I am not feeding my [02:06:00] body with the right stuff.
Um, like, and my wife is just so amazing, man. She makes me eat all my veggies and all my, all my protein, like all the protein goals, you know, it’s in my coffee. Okay. Like it’s collagen. That’s amazing. This stuff. It is like I, your wife and I would
Jac: be friends.
Tim: Yeah. She makes sure I have to hit a certain amount of protein and a certain amount, all that stuff.
Um, it’s physical exercise. Um, now that’s harder, especially with the travel schedule that I have. The routine is hard and I love a routine, like I need a routine. Um, and that always gets broken up with all the stuff that’s going on. So for me, it’s the physical side, it’s the health side, and then of course it’s the discipleship side.
It’s the, I need, and, and we didn’t go into this too deeply, but finding someone who will disciple you. Yeah. I mentioned my boss, whom I just love. He’s actually my mentor. I should stop calling him my boss because that sounds like an employee employer relationship and that’s not what it is. He is literally the guy, um, that I go to [02:07:00] with all of my questions.
He’s my kind of spiritual, um, father. I have, like, my biological father is amazing. I love him more than anything. Um, but there’s this, there’s a guy who just knows so much and I wanna, I wanna be like him when it comes to apologetics. I’m 42, he’s 75. I got a little ways to go. I’m, you know, I, I don’t. I got, I got some growing to do.
That’s awesome. So find someone who can disciple you, um, is key and be a discipler, you know, anyone. And for many of us, it’s our kids, but there’s friends and family and whoever Yeah. That you can be discipling and that’s gonna help you grow spiritually as well. So, um, for me, yeah, being well and strong, it’s like the whole package.
And I know when one side suffers, if I’m not in that gym, if I’m not eating right. The other side starts to suffer too. Yeah. You feel it. So, um, yeah, you, you do, you absolutely feel it. So, and then when you, when it’s all going well, it’s like, man, you feel like you could run a marathon and, [02:08:00] you know, and then write a systematic theology book or something, you know, everything’s like just going so well and then True.
What’s the equivalent of the marathon with theology? Okay. Yeah. Think of a word, Tim.
Jac: I love that. Yeah. Awesome. Well, again, this has been so much fun. I’m really excited to share this with listeners and yeah, can’t wait to have another one with you, Tim. It’s gonna be a series. Cool.
Tim: Yeah, let’s do it.
Jac: I hope you enjoyed this episode.
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