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Welcome to another episode of the Y ‘all Are Crazy Ranch Podcast. As promised, we are going to be doing an episode today about Christian apologetics. So before you turn this off, just realize that apologetics is not apologizing for being a Christian.
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It doesn’t mean you’re sorry?
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It doesn’t mean you’re sorry to be a Christian. It actually means quite the opposite. It means defending.
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apologetics means defending your faith and I got into this about three and a half years ago and started taking some classics classes at Liberty University and diving into it and then I just completed a certification for mama bear apologetics to become an instructor to teach it it’s just kind of crazy everything is we’ve started doing all these things so now we do an apologetic Sunday school class we’ve been doing that for maybe a year yeah probably has been and so you’ve gotten into it now and we are just we’re loving learning more about our faith how to defend it and we’re also questioning why are we not teaching this in churches that is a part that I have been wondering a lot lately so we’re almost 40 years old you know I’m almost a man 40 years old and I’ve been in church my entire life
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only in the past year have I you know been exposed and taught apologetics on a serious level and it’s like man this is so powerful and so important why aren’t why aren’t we educating Christians and people in church more about this topic I don’t understand that and why are we not teaching this in youth groups why are we not teaching this to our kids why is this not being taught because in our opinion this is the most valuable thing you can learn as a Christian is why do you believe what you believe and how can you stand up for your faith that’s it that is the most important things it is and in most churches you learn the classic Bible stories you learn the Noah’s Ark you learn about Joseph and his robe of many colors and you learn about the prodigal son you definitely learn about the gospel
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that I mean you need to learn all that we’re talking about is like in addition to that stuff , we don’t feel like apologetics is actually taught and that is the problem that’s a big problem and especially today I don’t remember the stats but if the kid goes to church growing up and say they’re fortunate enough to do that and they’re Christian and then they go to university what usually happens?
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I mean it was like a staggering like a 90 % is that, do you feel like that’s right?
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it was really high statistic that they will leave their faith yes, because what happens when they go to university unfortunately a lot of times the professors are not Christians and a lot of times they push their atheist ideology and religion
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. And they don’t know how to defend their faith and those professors might ask them tough questions and then it gets and starting to doubt and that’s how that the works and so apologetics can army with with facts and help you with conviction and help you understand why you believe what you believe.
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That’s right we both went to a small college and we both faced this with professors for me it was my freshman year I think first semester of college you know you’re required to take these Okay that’s a whole other discussion but mine was
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What’s that? What is the name of that? It’s not theology, but it’s like where you have to think deep What is the philosophy philosophy philosophy, so you’re required to take philosophy and the philosophy professor was a he was an atheist Okay, and he would ask us in class like I mean he would basically tell us like the Christianity is not real And here’s why and you know most being from a small I Would say mainly most of the kids that went there were from small towns, and we are in the Bible Belt So most kids there grew up in church, but when you have a professor telling you this is not true How dumb why would you think that as 18 year olds like that is a problem? and you have to your our kids have to know how to stand up for their faith and say This is why we are right, and we know it we know it and here’s why
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It’s a very good point. I was hit with that too and I was kind of shocked because like you said we went to a small school in Western Oklahoma and I mean this guy just hit us hard right out the gate.
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That was history wasn’t it?
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Yeah some kind of stupid history. That’s another thing. It’s like they require you to pay for these dumb classes that does you zero good. And then this guy’s just hitting you know Christianity right I mean first class and I’m like what I mean this guy had an agenda and it was your it was your first experience in college and you’re like hearing this.
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Yeah and like I said and thankfully for me that was my only experience with that was freshman year that first semester. I never had to face that again with professors however I’m sure in larger universities I’ve heard a lot of stories even Christian universities of kids having to face this so it is a real issue and so and you know our kids their school age.
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Our oldest is going into eighth, our daughter, and then our son’s going into seventh. There are oldest too, and they tell us a lot of times, even though we’re in a small community, most people are Christians, there are definitely those who are not. There are definitely kids who have never heard the name of Jesus, and our kids are lights in that place.
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So you have to equip your kids, whether they’re public school, private school, home school, they have to know how to defend their faith because if they don’t, they’re gonna fall to the side and just believe whatever the world tells them to believe. So this segues into this. We are doing a summer Bible study with our kids. This is the adult version I brought today. It’s called systematic theology for adults. There’s a kids version also. So I got this for our kids ages eight and up.
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Benaiah is our youngest doing it they need to be able to write is kind of I would think I think the threshold for this Barlow wants to do it, but he is not writing fully yet He’s almost six, but he still sits and listens to us He may bring his coloring book and color while we’re talking, but he does listen and absorb it But if your kids are kind of that writing age and up they can do the kids version a hundred percent each week You sit down as a family you? Read the passage that gives you we let our kids take turns And so there’s four of them doing it and they just take turns reading and then they have to answer Questions at the end and we talk about them.
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Yeah, and that’s been really Like you said, maybe Benaiah might not I actually he understands like a lot.
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He’s very smart, but it’s just
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The more that they hear that kind of stuff and the more that they can learn even if they’re not grasping at all I’m telling you it’s it’s making deposits Absolutely, you know and it’s sowing seeds that will reap a good harvest later on Yes, yeah We did and I grew up going to Sunday school and I’m so thankful for that and I learned so much at Sunday school Something else my parents did for me Well aside from taking us to church every Sunday and to every revival and to every Sunday night and Wednesday night Yes that my parents were great at that something else that they were really good about is they bought us this collection of VHS tapes and it was There was like an Old Testament version and there was a New Testament version I can’t remember who this was made by these are still in circulation
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But at the time, these were very expensive, so I know my parents, like they made this investment into us to buy these, because they were expensive, but me and my brother would watch these over and over and over, and it’s literally like the story of Daniel, and it’s animated.
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And so from a kid’s point of view, very easy to watch, and by the time I was, you know, school age and up, I knew all the Bible stories, and still to this day, that’s why I know so many Bible stories is from those VHS tapes. So if you have things like that, that you can pour into your kids, do it. It’s gonna help them, at such a young age, remember the Bible stories.
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And also like hey instead of letting them watch dumb Oklahoma Grassfed Beef things Turn on a veggie tales. I know those are kind of silly, but they do have good biblical lessons There’s also just really good shows that are good for older kids now, too Our kids love shows on angel. There’s like Tuttle Twins wing feather saga young David Stories like that that are just yes. They’re entertaining for kids They want to keep them entertained, but they’re teaching them biblical lessons also Put that stuff on instead of like YouTube all the time.
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Yeah, the total twins.
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I mean they got a lot of good stuff Well, they’re very pro America, too So so you’ll listen to it in your life.
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That was good Yeah, very pro America and and look those things like man you talk about making investments in your kids
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You know, those are good investments to make. Yes, those are those are good ones and I’m reading a book right now. It’s kind of like a philosophy book or you know deep thinker book and it’s called wisdom takes work He started reading that on our trip last week and I was like, ooh, it’s just takes work work and I mean I’m not very far into the deal maybe 30 pages or so, but And I was trying to I was in trying to look for the the quote that I underlined But I can’t find it in the moment but he was talking about the difference between knowledge and wisdom and I’m just gonna paraphrase because I couldn’t find the exact quote, but he talks he was talking about Kids in school and being taught by teachers and with our curriculum nowadays it’s more of just a memorization and take a test and if you score high enough, you’re good, but the knowledge might be
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Might be knowing something or memorizing it in the moment to pass a test but the wisdom is understanding the why and how it actually works and a lot of a lot of us don’t have Wisdom, we might know something but we don’t fully understand how it works and why and there’s power there like our kids might know that Jesus died for our sins and You know rose on the third day and they might know that but they not might not fully Understand why and they might not fully understand all the Bible stories and how they tie together and so the journey of constantly seeking wisdom is very very important and Some things we’ve learned in apologetics is like a young earth theory. Well, I’d never been taught that in church It’s really weird that we both grew up in church our whole life But we’d never heard so many of these terms never and it’s like you might believe that the earth is billions of years old
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Hey, you know, that’s on you. You could believe that I don’t believe that right I believe that the earth is about 6 ,000 years old and I’ve looked at the research and the data and the biblical truths of why I believe that A lot of people don’t even really know why they believe that but they’re taught that in a school or something And they just take it for what it is I would encourage you to actually spend time researching and then make up your own conclusion. You know what I mean?
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yeah, one of the Teachers we listen to in our apologetic Sunday school class says everything you need to know go back to Genesis 1 through 11 They repeated that I mean all the times One through 11 1 through Genesis 1 through 11 And so we deep dive a lot into Genesis 1 through 11 now granted Genesis 1 Does not say the earth was formed 6 ,000 years ago. Gosh should be so much easier if it did But I think so much of the Bible
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We just have to believe what God says and if it says, you know on the first day God created the heavens and the earth You know, he separated and you know, then this happened and then this happened on this day It’s like so much of our society has tried to be like well, maybe he didn’t mean days Maybe it was thousands of years in between and things like that and it’s like why don’t we just believe what the Bible says? because God said that he Created the earth in six days and on the seventh day he rested So why do we try to get all these things in like the gap theory? I had never heard of gap theory I don’t remember what that is. So that’s basically saying between days one and two. There was a huge gap in time and so many
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People try to say oh, well there was just a big gap and that’s how that happened But it’s like well God didn’t say that there was a gap He said day one day two and I read something the other day and and you know Sometimes you do start to believe well Maybe days weren’t days to God and I read something and it said if that were true God would not have made the earth on a 24 hour clock The Sun would not have come up in the morning and set in the evening that makes a day so Why are we trying to make it sound different and also that limits the power of God when we’re like Because what really what you’re saying is if there were thousands of years in between you’re allowing room for evolution right fit into those gaps and You’re doubting that God could do these huge things and that means you’re doubting the power of God
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So yeah, that’s very a good point. And what’s interesting is like People work so hard Yes to disprove the Bible and they come up with their own theories or their own timelines Oh a day is not a day. It’s a doubt. It’s a million years. You know what I mean, right? They just make crap up and it’s like, you know, hey the Bible is speaks truth If you believe it I believe that and it’s like stop trying to over complicate the truth or look for ways to Make up your own stuff take the Bible for what it is And when you look at a lot of the facts of the Bible, man, it’s super compelling I remember just looking at the timeline from when Adam and Eve were created and then you know their sons and you remember that Whole timeline you went to Noah, you know that it went on and it was like man That that lines up perfectly with about 6 ,000 years. It’s like
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Okay, it does and we don’t have time to get into everything but we wanted to hit high points today and Something that we’ve been learning a lot about is like How is there a place for evolution? This is a really deep topic and I do think there is a place for evolution However, here’s the thing There are a lot of variations of dogs. I think there’s like over a thousand varieties Yeah, but over time a dog is still a dog A dog doesn’t change from a dog to a different species Go from a dog to a cat, right? it can be bread in different ways to make smaller dogs or bigger dogs or micro -size poodles or whatever, but it’s still a dog Here’s something you learn growing up on a ranch and living on a ranch and I find this fascinating still as an adult
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Sheep and goats can’t mate with each other right isn’t that crazy like our sheep and goats are together all the time But they’re two different animals Therefore they can’t mate together to create a sheep goat They’re always gonna be a sheep and they’re always gonna be a doe goat same thing with cows and horses now you do have like Some weird things I guess like a donkey and a horse can make and make a mule But they’re all still like a horse variety Yes, you know and so with the evolution evolution argument You can think of it that way of sure. There’s a place for evolution Sure, I think humans have evolved over time in some ways maybe with body parts that we used to require And now we don’t
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but it doesn’t change the way a human body is laid out.
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Yeah, we’re all still humans. Right. You know, we didn’t come from a monkey, right? Monkeys are still monkeys. Oh, and this is a – You don’t see monkeys turning into humans nowadays, do you?
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I mean, I’ve never seen one. And this is a really good point with that too, is we all have an intelligent creator.
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Yeah.
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And when you look at them, and I mean, honestly, we can look at a monkey in a person, it’s like, there are similarities.
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Sure.
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I mean, you know, and I love watching monkey videos with babies because it’s just cute. And they do what the things we do, like as mothers with baby monkeys and mothers with baby humans. Like it’s very similar. However, we have the same Oklahoma Grassfed Beef creator. Yep. And when you look at it through that lens, it changes everything. Cause it’s like, well, of course the same creator would use the same characteristics and designs.
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to make these things.
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Yeah, it’s like if you were at a Ford plant making vehicles, you’ve got an F -150, you’ve got an F -250, 350, you’ve even got a Ford Focus, right? A lot of them have the same foundation, the same frame. You got a metal frame, you got four wheels, but they are different vehicles, right? You know, some of our DNA has similarities, but then there’s not, okay? And it’s like, there’s no real evidence of people coming from a monkey to a human. That’s what’s interesting. You know, we learned about that one monkey they try to say her name, they call her Lucy.
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Remember that?
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And then we dug into where they found those bones, and y ‘all, I encourage you to go look at it, because it’s pretty incredible.
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There’s an app called the Genesis Project, I think.
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You know, I know it’s Genesis and you can look up all these things Oh, and it’s it’s actually sad and disturbing about how much they make up but like the amount of like if they’ve got a Fossil like bones of this Lucy that they say was like becoming a human or whatever proof that whatever the bones that they found were scattered over like a Lot of land miles and it’s like Okay, and then the amount of bones they actually have that they think belong to this one monkey is only just a handful The rest they just made up and piece together and then they can show you on a PowerPoint like the image of it But it’s all made up there’s like four bones out of all of them that they actually have that belong to the thing and Then those bones were found like scattered all over the place. Like there’s it’s it’s very very unbelievable
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Those are the things you learn when you start actually looking into it, right? Yeah, and there’s a lot of other things that just prove like God’s existence and what the Bible says is truth. We’ve learned a lot about Noah’s ark and the flood. You know, when you learn about this as a kid, you got like, you know, it looks beautiful in these cute little animals, but when you think about this as a real -life event, a catastrophic flood that happened all those years ago, something we learned that I had never been taught is it wasn’t just rain that came down from the sky. The earth actually opened up and and water came from below too. How do we know that? We can see evidence of it.
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And the Bible says it the Bible says that when you look at it like oh But that’s that is how so many things got formed like the Grand Canyon so much proof you can see the layers In the Grand Canyon, yeah, and they like to say that layers indicate millions of years. You know, it’s a million years million years It’s like no and when you understand the flood if you believe that the flood happened you could understand that the shifting of rocks and formations and the if the water covered the entire earth and it did You’re moving those plates around and Spring waters are busting up from the ground like that created a bunch of layers like and we’ve seen pictures of trees that are like petrified in those rock layers and it’s like The science some scientists would say those rock layers might be let’s say 50 million years old but there’s a tree petrified through every layer of the dang thing and it’s like
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That ain’t 50 million years old. That’s right.
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I’m saying yeah, you find fossils of like fish and marine life on top of mountains That would indicate a flood covering the entire earth Yeah, a global flood is kind of the best way to say that and you know It just makes you realize that we’ve tried scientists have tried over the years to make sense of things And if you just believe what the Bible says, it’s so much easier to make sense of everything Yeah, you know we we learn in school that the continents were all together I think that was called Pangea and they were all together at one point and then they separated and we had continental drift Which when you think about a global flood happening and water rising from below and water coming like sure that would create that Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they probably weren’t together at one point But why are we looking for ways of like how did this happen? It’s like well the Bible told us
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Genesis 1 through 11, how this happened. So, so many things, gosh, we get taught as kids and then you look at it and you’re like, huh, why don’t we just believe what the Bible says? And now our kids, our Oklahoma Grassfed Beef son being in sixth grade last year, ooh, they start getting to learn a lot through like earth science and stuff and that they are literally being taught evolution.
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Evolution, very hard.
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Very hard. But thankfully our son being raised in the home we’re raising him in and the church we’re raising him in, he was able to be like, that is not true. He’s telling his friends like, that’s not true. God did this, this is not true. And he’s able to spot that and he’s able to call that out. And some people would say, well, that’s what public school is bad about, I agree. But however, your kids have to know how to discern truth from lies because the world is gonna teach that their whole life.
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they have to be able to learn how to stand up for their beliefs.
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That’s kind of the power of wisdom, right? And like reading this book on wisdom takes work, it takes work. And in the Bible talks about wisdom a lot. In Proverbs it talks about wisdom and the importance of seeking wisdom. Yeah. And the Bible talks about asking God for answers and clarity and the Holy Spirit will help you. Understanding all the things, understanding evolution and understanding their argument, understanding the biblical truths and the biblical argument, that allows you to make your own decision, right? And that’s where wisdom comes from is understanding all the different angles and then being able to make a decision on your own. And that’s what we’re talking about is being able to understand why you believe what you believe.
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then make your own argument. That’s right. You know, I wanted to get into a little bit of this book. I find week two very interesting. It’s about the existence of God. Well, who doesn’t want to know more about the existence of God? This is very important. So this says, can we know God exists? Some say we can’t prove God exists, but the Bible never tries to prove God. It assumes his existence as self -evident. The very first verse declares his reality without argument. The Bible declares, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Genesis 1 1. No defense, no argument, just a statement of reality. Why?
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Because God’s existence is evident to all people through creation and conscience. So this is kind of a taste of what this book offers. It just helps you understand, oh, here’s what the Bible says. Here’s why it matters and here is why you should believe what you believe.
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Yeah, that’s good. I mean, what do they talk about and That we are apologetic teachers says a lot is like scientists or science doesn’t say anything, but scientists do that’s right something like that Yeah, that’s exactly what it is. And it’s like science might you might find evidence of one thing, but then the scientist Interpret the data. Yeah, and then make their own opinion of the thing, right? And they can and they spin it however they want to spin it.
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That’s right Yeah, and so each of these weeks is so good because it just makes you think deep it makes you understand your faith more It gets into a lot of creation the the very first page is the doctrine of creation and It says the Latin first verse the Latin phrase Creatio ex nihilo means creation out of nothing. And so it really talks about how God created things out of nothing
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He doesn’t need creation to exist the universe depends on him, but he depends on nothing So each week are things like this and I would encourage you to do it with your spouse so you can learn this together Do it with your kids so your kids can be a part of it do it as a family these are 52 week workbooks So obviously if you did that for a full year once a week But for us we’re trying to knock it out this summer, so we’re doing several Per week and trying to do it together, and this doesn’t have to be complicated I mean when we do it with our kids, it’s not 10 15 minutes I mean, so it’s not like you know we’re holding an all -day workshop class with I would say it’s 15 minutes tops Yeah, so it doesn’t have to be complicated, but this stuff is super time well spent and you know We’ll spend 15 minutes. You know scrolling Facebook or whatever no problem Not even bat an eye, but then not take the time to do something like this
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educate ourselves or read a book ourselves and you know that’s where we’re kind of missing it I think as a society so for sure yeah and then I wanted to show you to show this book that you have because I think this is a good one we learned this study in Sunday school yep I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist and this one is by Frank Turek awesome book I haven’t finished it yet but man he goes through a lot of our arguments in here I mean a cosmo how you say a cause cosmos yeah the cosmetology no argument he talks about
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You know different things that they’ve learned from just space because some people will try to say that we learned like Albert Einstein Kind of was looking at I think it was light something to that effect out in the stars and what -have -you and Kind of he was like not believing in God and the creator and then the dude that had the Hubble telescope Was his name like Andrew Hubble or something like that? We had the Hubble telescope anyway He was able to figure out that like Something about the Oklahoma Grassfed Beef stars and the way that they’re moving and light and the color spectrum of the light and indicating that Our universe like had started together, but is like losing energy over time Kind of like a battery losing its power and going dead over time and was able to show that Einstein and Einstein just had to accept it because he couldn’t deny it, you know, and you learn stuff like that in here that’s
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It helps you anchor your faith and believe, you know, why why you believe what you believe some good movies Kind of like this are I was thinking about God’s not dead and there’s like three or four of those now Those are really kind of the case for Christ theology That’s also a movie and a book the movies like that are really good to help you understand how to defend your faith So that would also be time well spent with your kids watching movies like that Also great movies on angel there’s great movies made by the Kendrick brothers that we absolutely love Those are really good entertaining movies, but they’re gonna teach your kids a lot about how to stand up for their faith Some of those that we enjoy the newest one. I think is the Forge There’s also facing the Giants. So if your kids love sports and football, definitely watch that war room
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That’s a really good one. I love Priscilla Shrier. So that’s that is a great one that she’s in There are several overcomer. That’s another good one They have a hit they have maybe seven eight movies out at this point So search for those look for good godly content to show your family that will encourage them in their faith help your kids find role models that they can actually look up to and not just like You know rock stars athletes all these people who aren’t great examples to them help them find real -life people They can actually be mentors to them and they can look up to and then teach them to be mentors to others Yeah, cuz I mean this stuff takes intentionality because the world is not gonna help you in this arena
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As a matter of fact, they’re gonna try to pull you in the opposite direction. We know that. Everywhere you turn, it’s gonna try to pull you away from Christianity. And so it takes intentionality on your behalf and work to make sure you’re pouring this kind of stuff into your life and into your kids’ life through movies and books and time together in the Bible and that kind of stuff.
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That’s right. And something we’re getting ready to go do right now is we started a summer program. I actually started it for girls last summer. And then this year we’re bringing the boys in and you’re stepping into the boys role and we’re teaching these kids about Jesus’s love for them, God’s love for them, how to stand up for their faith, how to literally live their lives as Christians. And we’re bringing a lot of fun along the way. Just it’s really a cool like seven week program for these kids. And so we’re getting ready to go minister to about 60 kids.
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It’s gonna be fun.
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So things like that look for opportunities for your kids to be a part of things We really appreciate parents when they support our programs And then also look for ways that you can support other people’s programs and and help them in their ministry Yeah, it’s good stuff Hopefully this was helpful enjoyable. Hopefully you learned some things and 100 don’t stop with this Oklahoma Grassfed Beef podcast, right? Go do your own research deep dive. There’s a lot of things for apologetics I got to give a shout out if you’re a mom Right this minute go to amazon and purchase mama bear apologetics I’m an instructor for them now. So I I def I’m I am on board with everything they’re doing It’s going to help you as a mom learn how to defend your faith and to teach your kids to do the same
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So mom’s mama bear apologetics go order it right now This is a great book for everyone. I don’t have enough faith to be an atheist Yeah, there’s several books like this check your local Oklahoma Grassfed Beef church. See if there’s Sunday school classes There’s definitely YouTube videos a few people that we have learned to enjoy in Sunday school that teach on this Kent Hovind.
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Oh, yeah, dr. Dino That guy is smart.
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He was our first introduction.
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Yeah Up his stuff on you to Sunday school.
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Yeah, we he and he’s very entertaining and like a genius Yeah, so dr.
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Dino.
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Yes, and then Ken Ham. He is one of the creators of the Creation Museum and Incredibly intelligent so we like listening to him too. And then like I said the Genesis app
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Has so many resources where you can watch videos and learn so much about creation Yeah, so you’ll learn and go read Genesis 1 through 11 Over and over study it. Well, thanks for being a part. We’ll do another deep dive soon And hopefully you enjoyed this week. We will be back next week