Speaker 1: This is Timothy Albreno.
Speaker 2: Hey, this is Trace Matt.
Speaker 1: My name is La mar Hilly. This is doctor judperg
Speaker 1: This is Ryan Peterson.
Speaker 3: If you want to know your Bible, you have to dig,
Speaker 3: and you're in the right place.
Speaker 2: This is the Dig Bible Podcast.
Speaker 4: Hey, what's going on on my local guys and gals
Speaker 4: and long distance pals.
Speaker 2: We're back.
Speaker 5: We're back without being all right, we're missing him.
Speaker 2: We always miss Ben when he's not here.
Speaker 5: You gotta do it again. You gotta do the Ben voice.
Speaker 1: We're back.
Speaker 2: That's I can't get as deep as Ben.
Speaker 5: Being in that neighborhood. Friendly sasquash.
Speaker 2: He's here in heart right here.
Speaker 4: Well, today, guys, we got another banging episode for you guys.
Speaker 4: And uh it's a it's a returning guest. If you
Speaker 4: guys remember what it was. It two twenty two we
Speaker 4: had a guy named Rick Hasty and we had to
Speaker 4: talk on biblical worldview. Well, we have Rick back, and
Speaker 4: we actually have his daughter Waverley with us, and they
Speaker 4: actually have written a book together, and we wanted to
Speaker 4: have them on and talk about this book because we
Speaker 4: think that it's not only a great story, it's got
Speaker 4: a great message and it's relevant to the times that
Speaker 4: we're in today. So I'd just like to introduce to
Speaker 4: the show Rick and Waverley. So, guys, just for our
Speaker 4: new listeners that's not familiar with you, just kind of
Speaker 4: introduce yourself, likes, dislikes.
Speaker 5: Background, just give us a feel for who you guys are.
Speaker 6: I'm all the first. I'm Weaverly Cowards. I live in
Speaker 6: the North Georgia Mountains, about forty five minutes from Atlanta.
Speaker 6: I've been married nine and a half years. We have
Speaker 6: three amazing children run one seven year old son, a
Speaker 6: four year old.
Speaker 7: Daughter, and a one year old daughters just.
Speaker 6: Turned one, and by trade, I'm a marriage and family therapist,
Speaker 6: but taking some extended time off to mother and to
Speaker 6: homeschool and raise our children. So that also allows me
Speaker 6: to edit some books on the side and do podcasts.
Speaker 6: So couldn't couldn't do it without my husband, that's for sure.
Speaker 6: So shout out to shout out to him.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm the same guy that was hanging out with
Speaker 1: you a year or so ago. Justin and Steve and
Speaker 1: I know we've missed Ben, so we'll give a shout
Speaker 1: out to Ben there too. But in any case, I
Speaker 1: live in Charlotte part of the time and then live
Speaker 1: in Virginia up in the Tri Cities area near Justin
Speaker 1: and Steve, so we got to know each other a
Speaker 1: little bit. I've been doing management consulting for many, many years,
Speaker 1: and yet in the midst of all of that, somehow
Speaker 1: or another, God gave me a heart many years ago
Speaker 1: to get focused on apologetics and what it was like
Speaker 1: to defend our faith, not in academic settings so much
Speaker 1: as in the everyday life settings where people are struggling,
Speaker 1: they've got doubts, and I would say it's just as
Speaker 1: important for believers to keep questioning truth and getting it right.
Speaker 1: It's okay to question truth. And so as I learned
Speaker 1: that many years ago, I just recognized that I wanted
Speaker 1: to know more and more about who God is and
Speaker 1: not be fooled by the things that people say is
Speaker 1: but rather actually does not know about him either, but knowing.
Speaker 1: So that's been my journey over the years.
Speaker 4: Well with the book, the titles and search you for
Speaker 4: Proof and Faith. So with this book, what does this
Speaker 4: give us? A breakdown the premise of the book, what
Speaker 4: is it about and how it came about?
Speaker 6: Well, I attended for undergrad, I attended the University of
Speaker 6: North Carolina Chapel Hill, and I took a New Testament
Speaker 6: class my sophomore year with doctor bart Erman is his name.
Speaker 6: And after growing up in a Christian home, attending church
Speaker 6: my whole life, I did not expect silly me maybe,
Speaker 6: but I did not expect to take a New Testament
Speaker 6: class from a professor who did not believe.
Speaker 7: It to be true, like at all.
Speaker 6: And so I had, you know, several classes, and I
Speaker 6: would call my dad and begin to have these conversations
Speaker 6: about what he was talking about, the pushback he was giving,
Speaker 6: some quote unquote errors he was presenting, and my dad
Speaker 6: would flesh it out with me. We would kind of
Speaker 6: wrestle with these questions that came up, and I would
Speaker 6: get off the phone and talk it out with some
Speaker 6: of my peers because I did have believing peers.
Speaker 7: Actually, I took.
Speaker 6: The class with a couple of fellow young life leaders,
Speaker 6: and so I was able to kind of flesh it
Speaker 6: out with peers myself who knew and believed the Gospel
Speaker 6: to be true. And so it was just the first
Speaker 6: time I had really been presented with someone who was
Speaker 6: very smart, very intelligent, and yet. I mean, he was
Speaker 6: teaching Testament class and did not believe the New Testament
Speaker 6: to be true. So that was kind of a sound
Speaker 6: to me and an interruption to my smooth sailing faith,
Speaker 6: if you will.
Speaker 7: So it was it was quite an experience. So and
Speaker 7: I'll let my dods share some of his side of
Speaker 7: that too.
Speaker 1: Sort of along those same timeframes. My youngest son, who
Speaker 1: is now a senior in high school or almost a
Speaker 1: senior in high school, when kind of as first started,
Speaker 1: I realized that the time was coming to an end
Speaker 1: with him, and so I really wanted to try to
Speaker 1: encourage him to be doing Bible study regularly. And and
Speaker 1: so I approached him and a couple of his buddies
Speaker 1: and said, hey, what would you guys. Would you guys
Speaker 1: like to do a Bible study? And they said, let
Speaker 1: us think about it. And they thought about it and
Speaker 1: came back and said, nah, you know, we're we're we
Speaker 1: go to church. One of them actually didn't, but but
Speaker 1: we go to church, and you know, we go to
Speaker 1: Young Life and that we kind of think we kind
Speaker 1: of get enough Bible that way. And so I had
Speaker 1: a little bit of a crazy idea, and so I
Speaker 1: suggested to them, well, well, what if we did a
Speaker 1: Bible study and we didn't use the Bible? And they,
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, looked at me like I deserved,
Speaker 1: like I had a couple of nuts loose, and uh said,
Speaker 1: and but yeah. They came back and said, well, if
Speaker 1: we could do a Bible study without the Bible, we're
Speaker 1: in and what would that look like? And so what
Speaker 1: I suggested to them was, I'll tell you what you
Speaker 1: come up with a question, and we'll answer that question
Speaker 1: next week, and we won't use the Bible. So we
Speaker 1: spend a year, in almost a year and a half
Speaker 1: with a group of kids who grew to about probably
Speaker 1: a total of ten twelve fifteen kids that would rotate
Speaker 1: and be you know, eight or ten each Friday morning
Speaker 1: at six thirty am, and they would ask a question,
Speaker 1: you know, like is God good because I see a
Speaker 1: whole lot of evil in the world, and a whole
Speaker 1: variety of questions around dating, or around homosexuality, or around
Speaker 1: all the issues that were important to them. And so
Speaker 1: each each week they would ask a question one week,
Speaker 1: and then the next week I would come in with
Speaker 1: some answers or some books or various things come in
Speaker 1: with a lot of questions for them too, and so
Speaker 1: pretty much we'd spend most of the time just looking
Speaker 1: at what science or philosophy or life experience or whatever
Speaker 1: would tell you an answer to those questions. And then
Speaker 1: I'd always say, would you be interested in hearing what
Speaker 1: the Bible has to say? And what was very obvious
Speaker 1: to them, and frankly first to me, was how the
Speaker 1: Bible is a shortcut. If you want to know the
Speaker 1: real answer, you can get it pretty quickly through the scriptures.
Speaker 1: But you don't have to have the scriptures because the truth,
Speaker 1: that is God's made evident back to Romans one nineteen,
Speaker 1: all around us will give you answers to every one
Speaker 1: of those same questions. You don't have to have a Bible.
Speaker 1: And as most of us know, for eons there was
Speaker 1: no Bible, but God was showing himself every single day.
Speaker 1: So fast forward to the next year, Waverley and I
Speaker 1: started putting this material together and decided that there was
Speaker 1: a story to tell without using all the academic approaches.
Speaker 1: And we didn't think that high schoolers would actually read
Speaker 1: much of an academic book, but they might read a
Speaker 1: good story. So that's how we kind of settled on
Speaker 1: that format.
Speaker 2: That is that is awesome. So the way I look
Speaker 2: at this is we all go through life.
Speaker 3: We're all going to make decisions that are either good, bad,
Speaker 3: and different at times.
Speaker 2: But when we're at that cusp where we are.
Speaker 3: Going through that maybe late middle school, high school, into
Speaker 3: early college, like you're talking about Waverley, is we see
Speaker 3: that we're forming our identity of who we are at
Speaker 3: that time, are you know? And at my for me personally,
Speaker 3: I didn't want anything to do with God at that
Speaker 3: point in my life. I had absolutely nothing, and it
Speaker 3: took a kind of amazing thing for me to kind
Speaker 3: of jump back and to.
Speaker 2: Want God in my life. But not everybody is so lucky.
Speaker 3: We have to have people around us that are helping
Speaker 3: us form those opinions and bringing us and keeping that
Speaker 3: identity to our life because you have a choice. You
Speaker 3: can either identify with Christ or you can identify with
Speaker 3: the world. And that's the time when most people make
Speaker 3: those biggest decisions and make some of the biggest mistakes
Speaker 3: that all through their life. So you guys that are
Speaker 3: with what you're saying, you're attacking right at the right
Speaker 3: And I say attacking, you know what I mean? But
Speaker 3: you're attacking right at the right level that is so
Speaker 3: underserved in our world today because of the worldly views
Speaker 3: and the things that they're impressed with around Social media
Speaker 3: is the devil. I mean, we try to use it
Speaker 3: for good, but it is after our kids. It is
Speaker 3: after our kids, and that's it's just awesome that you
Speaker 3: guys found that whole and made that niche for those kids.
Speaker 3: I just think that's a powerful way, and you're hitting
Speaker 3: the right demographic.
Speaker 4: Because I mean, I had hunch that this was based
Speaker 4: off of a true account of some sort because it
Speaker 4: just sounded too personal. And I personally read this and
Speaker 4: I really enjoyed this, and I even told them, you know,
Speaker 4: pre roll that after I had finished it, I'd give
Speaker 4: it to my teenage daughter to read because I just
Speaker 4: knew that she would really enjoy it and there was
Speaker 4: lots of stuff in there that would identify with her
Speaker 4: and prepare her and arm her with truth and so.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but as I was reading that, I was
Speaker 4: just like, well, either this is somebody you know, Rick
Speaker 4: or Waverley knows a grandchild, you know, or something, because
Speaker 4: it was just it was very personal, very relatable, you know,
Speaker 4: it seemed very real.
Speaker 7: Well, it is very real.
Speaker 6: I think both of our experiences are weaved in there,
Speaker 6: but not just my dad's and mine.
Speaker 7: I think that.
Speaker 6: The experience the main character goes through Harper. She is
Speaker 6: a similar character to many many men and women who
Speaker 6: have grown up with Christian parents, who attend church but
Speaker 6: have never really wrestled with their faith, like what does
Speaker 6: it mean to believe that God is good? Because they've
Speaker 6: maybe never had any tragedy happen to them, They've kind
Speaker 6: of maybe stayed in a small town bubble, or maybe
Speaker 6: not even a small town, but they have attended a
Speaker 6: private school their whole life, or they have had the
Speaker 6: same group of friends their whole life. And so you're
Speaker 6: really when you get to college, for many people, that's
Speaker 6: the first time you're experiencing life on your own. And
Speaker 6: so with that comes a wrestling of who am I
Speaker 6: apart from my family, apart from my hometown, apart from
Speaker 6: my group of friends I grew up with. And so
Speaker 6: that can be a time where you're a sponge.
Speaker 7: You're kind of.
Speaker 6: Absorbing the thoughts and ideals and philosophies of your peers,
Speaker 6: your new peers, or your professors, or even your youth
Speaker 6: group leaders or you know, whatever it is. You're involved
Speaker 6: in political groups, sororities or fraternities, your club, soccer team,
Speaker 6: whatever you're involved in.
Speaker 7: In college, you're absorbing kind of.
Speaker 6: These new experiences and so how does that influence you?
Speaker 6: And if you're not really if you don't really have
Speaker 6: a good foundation, your faith can really take some hits,
Speaker 6: and especially if you don't have.
Speaker 7: People.
Speaker 6: I mean, I feel very blessed that I had my dad,
Speaker 6: but a lot of people don't have some that they
Speaker 6: can really go to and say, ooh, I'm really having
Speaker 6: this thought. I mean, somebody came to me with some
Speaker 6: really good questions and I don't know the answers, and I.
Speaker 7: Thought I would.
Speaker 6: I thought I knew that God was good, but they
Speaker 6: had a really really good argument for that and.
Speaker 7: I had nothing to say.
Speaker 6: So that was really kind of our heart in it
Speaker 6: was to be able to really flesh out these conversations.
Speaker 6: Maybe for maybe for college kids, but I think it's
Speaker 6: the earlier in middle school, early high school, so you
Speaker 6: have the time to really have those good conversations with
Speaker 6: your with your students or with your children, I think
Speaker 6: is ideal.
Speaker 7: So yeah, it's I think it's really cool, and you
Speaker 7: look at that the same way.
Speaker 2: I kind of hit it a little bit already.
Speaker 3: But a lot of time we focus so much on
Speaker 3: who can we reach out there with the gospel, and
Speaker 3: that's a really important thing. The Great Commission's amazing, But
Speaker 3: if you look at the majority of the New Testament,
Speaker 3: it's not about reaching out to everybody.
Speaker 2: It's about Paul's write letter and letter and letter.
Speaker 3: Again, trying to strengthen the people that are already in
Speaker 3: the church. We're not the church itself continues to need
Speaker 3: to be fed. Once you're in the church, once you're
Speaker 3: a believer in Christ, you still need to be fed
Speaker 3: every day. You still need that to grow. You still
Speaker 3: need the Christian the Christian inner circle that helps keep
Speaker 3: you on the right path if you stray away from that.
Speaker 3: And you were talking about that the same thing with
Speaker 3: I think about it. My wife always says us, she
Speaker 3: says inner circle, outer circle. Right, we have friends that
Speaker 3: are not Christian, or that maybe live a different lifestyle
Speaker 3: or do different things that maybe we don't agree with,
Speaker 3: but that's not our inner circle. Our inner circle is
Speaker 3: our believers are are people that keep us on the
Speaker 3: right track. We still want to witness all those other people,
Speaker 3: but that's our outer circle. We're not letting them influence us,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And I think that's it's
Speaker 3: just really important that we strengthen the believers in the church,
Speaker 3: especially the younger generation that's dealing with things that me
Speaker 3: and Justin didn't even have to deal with, or you, Waverley,
Speaker 3: because you're even younger than both of us.
Speaker 2: I think it's true.
Speaker 6: I don't know how old you I you Sar, but
Speaker 6: I feel pretty old sometimes.
Speaker 7: But yeah, I think if you it's.
Speaker 6: Not I think if your inner circle is asking the questions,
Speaker 6: because you can have an inner circle of people who
Speaker 6: believe the same things that you do, but we all
Speaker 6: have different life experiences, right, so we are coming into
Speaker 6: the conversations whatever those conversations look like as far as
Speaker 6: you know, what we believe, like flashing that out and
Speaker 6: we all kind of have this background, this lived experience
Speaker 6: that influence and says that, and so it's it's really
Speaker 6: good if you if you have those inner circles of
Speaker 6: friends that you really kind of pressed into each other,
Speaker 6: you know, don't just be an echo chamber, but really
Speaker 6: say you know, we're talking about Oh yes, God.
Speaker 7: Is so good.
Speaker 6: You know, why do we believe that God is so good?
Speaker 6: You know what, what in our lives has pushed up
Speaker 6: against that and we're able to push back, you know,
Speaker 6: with the truth, because I think that is very real.
Speaker 6: When you have tragedy in your life, when you somebody
Speaker 6: doesn't meet your expectations, lets you down, when you have
Speaker 6: loss of relationship or you know, whatever that might look like.
Speaker 6: You your your faith, no matter how how strong you
Speaker 6: thought it was when life was going really great, you
Speaker 6: can begin to question no matter how long you've known
Speaker 6: the Lord. I became a believer when I was young.
Speaker 6: I think I was maybe five or six, and so
Speaker 6: there wasn't much time of six, There wasn't There wasn't
Speaker 6: much time I didn't have a relationship with Jesus. But
Speaker 6: I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't
Speaker 6: come up against some really big obstacles to believing God
Speaker 6: was good in my college and my young adult even
Speaker 6: now in my thirties, so you know, searching for proof
Speaker 6: and faith. You know, at the end of the book,
Speaker 6: for those who read it, you know, we wanted to
Speaker 6: end with it's it's going to be a lifelong journey.
Speaker 6: It is not about finding the answers and that being it.
Speaker 6: You say, I got the answer, I'm good.
Speaker 7: You know. I think.
Speaker 6: Throughout our lives, a personal relationship with Jesus means that
Speaker 6: we are going to be asking questions and wrestling with
Speaker 6: our faith, because that's living and breathing faith. He doesn't
Speaker 6: want us to be these robots that just say, okay,
Speaker 6: we're believers and that's that. He wants us to be
Speaker 6: engaged with the world and what's going on around us
Speaker 6: and always strengthening our faith. So we hope people read
Speaker 6: the story and hope they get to the end of it.
Speaker 6: And even if they are believers, even if they none
Speaker 6: of these answers are surprising to them, none of none
Speaker 6: of the content of the book is surprising to them.
Speaker 6: We hope that they are at least encouraged that it's
Speaker 6: we hope that they grow in their faith their whole lives.
Speaker 4: So, and what I found impressive was it was, you know,
Speaker 4: the hero's journey. I mean when I read that, because
Speaker 4: it's like you start off in your comfort zone. You know,
Speaker 4: you're in your little you know, in her instance of
Speaker 4: the story, she's in her little small town church, group
Speaker 4: of friends, and family, and she you know, takes the
Speaker 4: calling and goes off to college and her faith you know,
Speaker 4: is challenged, and she actually starts to doubt and ask
Speaker 4: the questions. And where she had been in her comfortable
Speaker 4: bubble and not had nobody press on her, she didn't
Speaker 4: have the answers and was able to you know, really
Speaker 4: defend her faith or really or her faith had never
Speaker 4: really been under attack. And then you have that in
Speaker 4: these hero journey stories. But then usually following right after
Speaker 4: that is where what they call the supernatural aid comes,
Speaker 4: you know, the calling comes, you accept the calling, then
Speaker 4: there's some super natural aid. In this story, she gets
Speaker 4: a familiar face and a friend that gives her some
Speaker 4: aid and strengthens her and calls her back, you know,
Speaker 4: to to her Christian roots. And but with this story,
Speaker 4: could you just you know, touch on how how it's
Speaker 4: relevant and how applicable in young people's lives, and how
Speaker 4: the importance of your inner circle as we talked about,
Speaker 4: but also stepping out of your comfort zone and having
Speaker 4: difficult questions. And was it that scripture you always mentioned, Steve,
Speaker 4: was it verse Peter three point fifteen?
Speaker 3: Always be able to give a reason for the hope
Speaker 3: that you have, but do so with generalness and respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that the audience for the book is important,
Speaker 1: and so we wrote this as you can already tell
Speaker 1: for high schoolers, by the way, I think that age
Speaker 1: has maybe moved down into middle school today. I think
Speaker 1: certainly eighth and ninth graders are confronted with all of
Speaker 1: these challenges to their faith. And so in that context,
Speaker 1: whether middle school, high school age, they're going to be
Speaker 1: exposed to a lot of people. They may have been
Speaker 1: living in their bubble, might have been surrounded by their
Speaker 1: inner circle for lots of years, but they're soon going
Speaker 1: to be outside of that bubble. And so the question
Speaker 1: is are you just going to as a parent, are
Speaker 1: you just going to kind of throw them out there
Speaker 1: hoping that they make it, or are you going to
Speaker 1: prepare them for the day in which they're going to
Speaker 1: bar Erman, by the way, is one of the most
Speaker 1: widely read, most called upon atheist in the world today.
Speaker 1: That was who Waverley had as a sophomore in college
Speaker 1: as her quote unquote New Testament professor. So fear warning here,
Speaker 1: Christian parents that when you said your kid off to college,
Speaker 1: then we can talk about both secular and NOx and
Speaker 1: parochial schools. Here on both they're going to be confronted
Speaker 1: with questions about their faith, maybe with very radical answers
Speaker 1: that will take them way way far. So my question
Speaker 1: to parents is are you willing to take the time
Speaker 1: to allow your kids to ask the questions and then
Speaker 1: gently guide them to the right answers. And if you don't,
Speaker 1: then you're going to be throwing them out to the
Speaker 1: faith lists wolves, And as the scriptures teach us to
Speaker 1: share the devil, we'll send a pack of wolves out
Speaker 1: there to absolutely grab your children's faith as they become
Speaker 1: young adults. Especially so in any case, long long answer
Speaker 1: there to say that we want to equip both children,
Speaker 1: and I would say equip their parents with a door
Speaker 1: to step into answering some of the deeper questions about
Speaker 1: their faith than about life in general.
Speaker 6: Parents should always be almost the first line of defense.
Speaker 6: But I think being intentional with who your children spend
Speaker 6: time with, because you have a say they're in your home,
Speaker 6: you do have a say about who they're inner circle.
Speaker 7: Have conversations with them about who their inner is, have
Speaker 7: conversations about who they trust.
Speaker 6: And maybe it's not you that they turn to. But
Speaker 6: do they have a wise small group leader, do they
Speaker 6: have a wise teacher? If they go to Christian school,
Speaker 6: do they have an older peer? Maybe in middle school
Speaker 6: there's a you know, a middle school high school peer
Speaker 6: type relationship.
Speaker 7: Program.
Speaker 6: It's the inner circle of your child is extraordinarily important.
Speaker 6: Pray for that, pray when they're for parents who are
Speaker 6: best starting out.
Speaker 7: I mean, I have a seven.
Speaker 6: Year old to four year old and one year old.
Speaker 6: I mean, I'm I'm praying for their peers. I'm praying
Speaker 6: for their current friendships, future friendships, even their peers parents,
Speaker 6: that the households that they grow up in and their
Speaker 6: experiences are they're surrounded by wisdom and knowledge of the truth.
Speaker 6: So it's it's incredibly important my opinion.
Speaker 7: And it can be a lifelong set up.
Speaker 6: You know, who your child's friends with their middle school
Speaker 6: school years.
Speaker 7: Might be a friend.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I don't know if I answer question.
Speaker 3: Steve, Yeah, oh I agree one hundred percent. You talk
Speaker 3: about that like who do you go to you know
Speaker 3: when you're having a bad day, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: when we're.
Speaker 2: There kids, our kids come to us, Our kids come.
Speaker 3: And they they you know, will say, oh, this kid
Speaker 3: was mean to me, or this happened at school or whatever.
Speaker 3: As they get a little bit older, they go to
Speaker 3: their friends. But is that friend, that person that you're
Speaker 3: relying on. Is that someone who's going to turn you
Speaker 3: towards the world or are they going to turn you
Speaker 3: back to Christ?
Speaker 2: So we have to always know.
Speaker 3: And that's for me like this podcast, just being part
Speaker 3: of this has been such a blessing because I can
Speaker 3: talk to Justin about this anytime I want. I can
Speaker 3: talk to Ben anytime I want. I have Christian friends
Speaker 3: that ground me, and that all this has done is
Speaker 3: grow my faith because even as an adult, I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, I'm only nineteen, but even as an
Speaker 3: adult like I still need my faith to be strengthened
Speaker 3: by the people around me. There are times, even in
Speaker 3: my adult life, without my wife being her what she
Speaker 3: is with her faith, that I would have fallen away
Speaker 3: because something was hard or something hit me and like
Speaker 3: you said, the struggles that we go through. If it
Speaker 3: wasn't for her, I would have fallen away. But because
Speaker 3: I had a wife with a phenomenal Christian upbringing and
Speaker 3: foundation faith, and that without her I might not be
Speaker 3: sitting here.
Speaker 2: So you're right.
Speaker 3: It's a lifelong process. It doesn't stop. So it is important.
Speaker 3: It isn't all those choices we make, who we marry,
Speaker 3: you know, go back, who your friends are. All those
Speaker 3: things make a big difference in how your faith is
Speaker 3: going to grow over the years. But it does start,
Speaker 3: or like you said, Rick, it's starting younger and younger
Speaker 3: and younger. Now, I mean, it's the stuff that's happening
Speaker 3: when they have they're putting litter boxes and bathrooms at schools.
Speaker 2: I can't, I just I don't even know what to say.
Speaker 2: It's just crazy to me.
Speaker 3: So you're right, you guys, it's powerful, but you're going
Speaker 3: to have to write another one that speaks to like
Speaker 3: middle schoolers now, so you're gonna have to go after that.
Speaker 1: Great news is I think for kids and parents, and
Speaker 1: then I would take even college students, particularly those that
Speaker 1: might not have been confronted with some of these issues.
Speaker 1: Is that what we've tried to do in our book
Speaker 1: is not just tell a story, but also provide resources.
Speaker 1: So there's nine chapters in the book and they cover
Speaker 1: nine different myths that our kids and we are being
Speaker 1: sold every day by the media around us. By by frankly,
Speaker 1: just everyday conversations that accept things like evolution or accept
Speaker 1: things like there is no God or et cetera, and
Speaker 1: especially today, try to push the lbgt Q agenda. Don't
Speaker 1: be fooled. I mean, we're being bombarded every single day,
Speaker 1: so are there answers. So while our story addresses those myths,
Speaker 1: at the same time, at the end of every chapter,
Speaker 1: we we give a plethora of resources for people to
Speaker 1: dig deeper. And I would say, you know, for us,
Speaker 1: it certainly is a is a goal of ours that
Speaker 1: you might give your high school or a book that
Speaker 1: maybe they read, maybe they don't read, but they keep
Speaker 1: so that as those questions arise, they maybe go to
Speaker 1: a chapter to financiers, or maybe go to the end
Speaker 1: of the chapter and find a long list of books, podcasts, websites,
Speaker 1: all of which would lead them YouTube videos, all of
Speaker 1: which would lead them to find out more and find
Speaker 1: out truthful answers, not just hypotheses that are being presented
Speaker 1: as fact.
Speaker 3: I love that you say hypotheses because I can't stand
Speaker 3: when they say the theory of evolution, because the theory means
Speaker 3: that you've been able to replicate it to some degree
Speaker 3: and yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, the dig gets a mentioned. You bet it does.
Speaker 5: That's what I was about to say. I didn't know
Speaker 5: if it will be crass to.
Speaker 4: Take a victory lab and I was like, yes, thank you, Rick,
Speaker 4: we are now publicized. Three rednecks in the garage are
Speaker 4: publicized now.
Speaker 1: Well, as I was saying, you've been publicized by a
Speaker 1: lot more than me. I know, but your long list
Speaker 1: of podcasts participants have been so impressive over the last
Speaker 1: couple of years. You guys have done an amazing job.
Speaker 1: So how could we leave you out?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Well that was all God there.
Speaker 4: We just asked, and God put it on their heart
Speaker 4: for them to say yes, so we'll show up and talk.
Speaker 4: But I had a two part question for you. One
Speaker 4: Waverley with you put in that position, and I know
Speaker 4: Rick well enough to know that you were in a
Speaker 4: Christian household and you were, you know, painting with a
Speaker 4: broad brush, but you were well equipped. But you being
Speaker 4: put in that position that you were in, how did
Speaker 4: that make you feel? Did you ever have any moments
Speaker 4: where you may have doubted your faith or felt just
Speaker 4: under attack? I mean, how did you feel being put
Speaker 4: in that position? And then when you're done, Rick, I
Speaker 4: think it's important too to speak on the basis of apologetics,
Speaker 4: because the friend in this story done such a good job.
Speaker 4: If she would have handled this situation differently, she wouldn't
Speaker 4: have been able to change her friend's mind. And I
Speaker 4: know those classes that we did you talked about you know, basically,
Speaker 4: apologetics is not the art of arguing and winning arguments.
Speaker 5: It's about relationship.
Speaker 4: So for the people that are listening and they have
Speaker 4: that friend that is either not a non believer or
Speaker 4: question their faith, maybe you could just touch on that
Speaker 4: a little bit to equip those people to handle those situations.
Speaker 5: I think that would be really important.
Speaker 7: I would be.
Speaker 6: Remiss to not acknowledge that my college years I was
Speaker 6: not always as strong in my faith as I was
Speaker 6: growing up. I think some of that is a very
Speaker 6: normal thing. If I could, I could encourage every parent developmentally,
Speaker 6: every child is going to go through a season.
Speaker 7: Maybe that's a couple months, maybe that's.
Speaker 6: A couple of years where your child is going to
Speaker 6: be trying to figure out who.
Speaker 7: They are in the world and what that looks like,
Speaker 7: and they're going to be trying on all.
Speaker 6: Sorts of identities, and that may be really peoful and
Speaker 6: really difficult to watch. It may be, it may be
Speaker 6: just a lip. But for me, I think even though
Speaker 6: my faith was not as strong, I had such a good,
Speaker 6: solid foundation of truth. Parents who prayed for me, prayed
Speaker 6: with me, who asked hard questions, who were not afraid
Speaker 6: of confrontation. When I was living at high school and
Speaker 6: kind of not living out of my faith, the world
Speaker 6: influence who I was, but they didn't shy away from
Speaker 6: asking those hard questions, and I would just encourage like
Speaker 6: that had such a huge influence when that happened in
Speaker 6: high school.
Speaker 7: That had such a huge influence on me.
Speaker 6: In college because they were still asking hard questions, but
Speaker 6: I wasn't under their roof, and so Gosh, the Lord
Speaker 6: never let go of me. I never praise Jesus. I
Speaker 6: don't think there was a single day in which I
Speaker 6: did not believe in the truth of Scripture. I did
Speaker 6: not believe that God wasn't real. I did not believe that,
Speaker 6: you know, that God didn't create the earth, or.
Speaker 7: You know, whatever questions. I was kind of hit with.
Speaker 6: Praise Jesus that I always now did my life look
Speaker 6: exactly like I was living out of faith and truth?
Speaker 7: No, because I just had such a good.
Speaker 6: Foundation that I know in my heart I never walked
Speaker 6: away from the Gospel. So if that makes sense, you
Speaker 6: have to acknowledge where there are seasons in which your
Speaker 6: faith is not as strong. But again, I just had
Speaker 6: a really good childhood, a really great adolescence, a really
Speaker 6: great beginning of my teen years, parents that were very
Speaker 6: involved in my life. I had amazing small group leaders
Speaker 6: starting from middle school years of women who loved me,
Speaker 6: who spoke truth to me. My parents attended a church
Speaker 6: where the gospel was preached and preached clearly, So I
Speaker 6: hope I answered what you were kind of getting after.
Speaker 6: But I think it's important as faith, And now that
Speaker 6: I'm a parent, I hope that when I get to
Speaker 6: the teenage years that I also allow my child to wrestle.
Speaker 6: But the wrestling is really important because then at the
Speaker 6: end of it, their faith really becomes their own.
Speaker 7: You know, you're.
Speaker 6: Investing in your child, you're praying for your child, you're
Speaker 6: speaking truth. We're doing Catechism with my seven year old,
Speaker 6: memorizing Catechism.
Speaker 7: You're trying to.
Speaker 6: Input as much gospel truth into their life as you
Speaker 6: possibly can. But it's not going to be probably until
Speaker 6: his teenage years and maybe your early adulthood in which
Speaker 6: he solidifies that for himself. And I'm going to have why,
Speaker 6: I have nothing to do with it anyway, It's all
Speaker 6: It's all Christ, whether and when those seats get planted
Speaker 6: and sprout and grow.
Speaker 7: But I don't want my faith to be his faith.
Speaker 7: I want his faith to be his own.
Speaker 6: I want it tend to be rock solid, and no
Speaker 6: Christ to know the truth of the Gospel, because he
Speaker 6: believes it to be true, not because I told him
Speaker 6: it was. So, Yeah, I just did an encouragement for parents,
Speaker 6: and just out of my own story, those seasons of
Speaker 6: perhaps your child going off there, it can produce really
Speaker 6: great fruit.
Speaker 1: So we know anybody that's got more than one child
Speaker 1: is that they're not all alike. And so not all
Speaker 1: of my kids were quite as passionate around their faith
Speaker 1: as Waverley was, I would say, pretty much through her
Speaker 1: college years too. Not suggesting she was perfect, but I
Speaker 1: am suggesting that you know, you've got to deal with
Speaker 1: your children as they are who they are, and so
Speaker 1: as you know justin we wrote the original story back
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago, and then we rewrote it more recently
Speaker 1: and kind of updated it with a few things, including
Speaker 1: a chapter on the OLGBGQ myths about Christianity. And so
Speaker 1: I think what we're more sensitive to today, although this
Speaker 1: was the original story, is it defending your faith is
Speaker 1: to others who would who would mock us? Is not
Speaker 1: about arguments. It's about demonstrating truth first and foremost with
Speaker 1: our own demonstration of love. And so the story that
Speaker 1: we tell here is not about a person who gets
Speaker 1: offended because her former friend is now openly questioning our faith,
Speaker 1: but rather coming alongside of them. And I think that's
Speaker 1: just as true even with a stranger and justin you
Speaker 1: remember when we were talking about defending our faith together
Speaker 1: a few years ago, that, you know, we just really
Speaker 1: emphasized that, as as Steve is quoting in first Peter three,
Speaker 1: that our goal is to defend our faith with gentleness
Speaker 1: and reverence, not within your face arguments. Because I believe
Speaker 1: when we do attempt to come alongside of people and
Speaker 1: demonstrate love, that we're really just kind of planting seed
Speaker 1: into fertile soil so that the Holy Spirit might work.
Speaker 1: And so we hope that our character in this story
Speaker 1: is kind of setting an example of how to come
Speaker 1: alongside someone who's questioning their faith, and then work through
Speaker 1: a process with them, find out what really matters to them,
Speaker 1: find out where they discovered these what they think is true,
Speaker 1: which is more often than not really truly are just
Speaker 1: fi is just fiction. And so you know, we'd be
Speaker 1: remiss though to not just mention the people that have
Speaker 1: that are a part of our bibliographies here. But a
Speaker 1: big inspiration for us even to write the book was
Speaker 1: Norm Geisler. And anybody who knows anything about apologetics knows
Speaker 1: that Norm Geiser's is one of the foremost writers more
Speaker 1: than one hundred books on various topics around philosophy and
Speaker 1: logic and apologetics. Together with one of his his key disciples,
Speaker 1: Frank Turiku, today is probably one of the best known
Speaker 1: speakers debaters around apologetics. And then you know, we borrored
Speaker 1: from all kinds of people, not just quoting him in
Speaker 1: the book, but then having their materials in the bibliographies,
Speaker 1: but people like Josh McDowell and even more recently his
Speaker 1: son today Sean McDowell, more more modern names like Abigail
Speaker 1: Shreer and Rebecca mcgoflin. These are people who've done tremendous
Speaker 1: work to help people formulate their ideas well. And yet
Speaker 1: every one of them, I think that we name also
Speaker 1: have a humility about them that they recognize this isn't
Speaker 1: just about winning an argument. However, we do have the
Speaker 1: upper hand on the arguments. We reserve the God of truth,
Speaker 1: the God who created all things and made them in
Speaker 1: order that they might bring him glory and demonstrate who
Speaker 1: he is. And so I'd say, in the midst of this,
Speaker 1: probably the greatest message to start with for me is
Speaker 1: the most common theme that I hear oftentimes, Well, if
Speaker 1: God would just show himself, Well, he's been doing that
Speaker 1: from the beginning of time, and if we're just open
Speaker 1: to look, we absolutely will see him.
Speaker 4: And if you're doing your job right, they'll see him
Speaker 4: through you, you know. And that's one thing that I
Speaker 4: just loved about that because I see it all the time,
Speaker 4: and then I've been guilty of it myself. Somebody that's
Speaker 4: straight from their faith or they're not a believer, to
Speaker 4: just disassociate, you know, or argue with them. When they
Speaker 4: argue back, you get angry and split, you know. I
Speaker 4: like how doctor Phil always said, you know, you can
Speaker 4: be right or you can be happy, but you can't
Speaker 4: have both. So you've got to ask yourself, yo, what's
Speaker 4: more important you being right and being a right fighter,
Speaker 4: or loving your neighbors you love yourself and meeting them
Speaker 4: where they're at and with gentle and kindness and asking
Speaker 4: the right questions. Because in that story, had been very
Speaker 4: easy for this hometown girl to just see her apost state,
Speaker 4: you know, sister, and just shed her and distance her
Speaker 4: and talk about her to her mama on the phone
Speaker 4: later that night, you know, but she did.
Speaker 3: How do we bring people closer to Christ if we
Speaker 3: just argue with them, if they see us and we
Speaker 3: come from a place of condemnation or judgment, and we're
Speaker 3: telling them what you're evil, what you're doing is wrong,
Speaker 3: you're doing these things.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, we aren't the ones that judge.
Speaker 3: There is but one judge, and there is one judgment,
Speaker 3: and it's at that white throne of judgment that's going
Speaker 3: to happen at the end of time. In the meantime
Speaker 3: we are called upon when Jesus, when Jesus was asked
Speaker 3: by the lawyer, which is the greatest of the commandments,
Speaker 3: he said, love the Lord your God with all your heart,
Speaker 3: soul of mind, and love your neighbor as yourself, and
Speaker 3: then everything else falls into place. It doesn't matter your neighbor,
Speaker 3: is everybody love everybody. I don't care what their lifestyle is.
Speaker 3: I don't care what their their ideas are. If I
Speaker 3: come at somebody and and treat them like they are
Speaker 3: a black sheep, guess what, that's gonna only drive them
Speaker 3: further away from God.
Speaker 2: I need to show them love.
Speaker 3: I need to show them compassion and try to show
Speaker 3: them Christ through my actions.
Speaker 2: And that's what we're all called to do.
Speaker 7: I do think we are living in a world.
Speaker 6: Where that love is The definition is very tricky, and
Speaker 6: our definition of love as believers is not quite what
Speaker 6: the world says is love. And I think, you know,
Speaker 6: going back to what you're saying to have an answer
Speaker 6: is really important, not in order to argue.
Speaker 1: But.
Speaker 7: Because it's really important to be.
Speaker 6: Clear about what the Gospel says and not to allow
Speaker 6: the world to kind of muddy it down, like sometimes
Speaker 6: to get thrown out. You know, Jesus just love to people,
Speaker 6: and well, yeah he did. He really loved them. He
Speaker 6: loved them enough to speak the truth to them. He
Speaker 6: he loved them enough two to call them out of
Speaker 6: sin and call them to himself and to redeem them.
Speaker 6: He loved them enough to die on the cross for
Speaker 6: their sins. And so I think it's really important these
Speaker 6: days to have clear definitions about what loving people.
Speaker 7: Looks like.
Speaker 6: And and and to the Christian who goes off like
Speaker 6: our heroine, so to speak, the main character in our story.
Speaker 6: You know, she she goes off and she's trying to
Speaker 6: figure it out, you know, the the girl who's older
Speaker 6: than her, Maya who's kind of speaking into her. She's
Speaker 6: she doesn't ty away from from the truth. She she
Speaker 6: calls her friend to wrestle, to engage, and she doesn't say, oh,
Speaker 6: you're just you know, you want to explore these new
Speaker 6: age ideas.
Speaker 7: You go right ahead. I'll just like love you.
Speaker 6: You know, right on through that. You know, she really
Speaker 6: gently invites her into kind of calling her back to
Speaker 6: her faith.
Speaker 5: Head. I'll pray for you, yeah.
Speaker 7: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: You know, I just accept you exactly how you are,
Speaker 6: which you know, in some ways she does. She accepts
Speaker 6: where she is, but she she doesn't kind.
Speaker 7: Of let her stay there, you know, she gives her some.
Speaker 6: Push back and helps her think things through all the way.
Speaker 3: So that's that gentleness and respect.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I got a question for you, guys.
Speaker 1: You're I'm just curious about this. I'm just thinking out
Speaker 1: loud with you for a minute. But I think y'all
Speaker 1: will have a perspective on it, which is it is
Speaker 1: Satan strategic And by that what I mean is, you know,
Speaker 1: we wrote this book fifteen years ago and now we
Speaker 1: just rewrote it, and so in between a lot has happened.
Speaker 1: You know, our world has shifted at a rapid pace.
Speaker 1: And I would say that that Christianity is under siege
Speaker 1: in America today, very very differently, not that satan one
Speaker 1: that work twenty five fifty one hundred years two hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, but it seems different to me. And I'm
Speaker 1: just wondering, do you think Satan has changed his tactics?
Speaker 6: Oh?
Speaker 5: One, per He's destroying us from the inside. Now.
Speaker 4: Now you got churches bringing you know, cross dressers and
Speaker 4: and things into the quote unquote church and reading to
Speaker 4: children and talking about love there. Even he's even taking
Speaker 4: with just saying a new trick, it's old trick. He
Speaker 4: was doing it back in Genesis, taking the word of God,
Speaker 4: manipulating it to make Jacob and some of these other
Speaker 4: characters David to seem like they were homosexuals and twisting
Speaker 4: the word of God. But it's he's definitely changing everything
Speaker 4: and going into and infiltrating the church and trying to
Speaker 4: destroy it from the inside.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, I don't I agree and disagree at
Speaker 3: the same time.
Speaker 2: But that's me and Justin like to do that a lot.
Speaker 2: I'll say that that we see.
Speaker 3: Things I think a little bit differently, but I don't
Speaker 3: see today is any different than the way role was
Speaker 3: how Rome fell apart. Right, it turns everything turns into
Speaker 3: debauchery and you know, do what you want to do,
Speaker 3: and it was intermarrying and you're you're losing your culture
Speaker 3: and everything starts going a different direction. We start seeing
Speaker 3: sin always being the center point of any culture that's
Speaker 3: about to crumble, and we're seeing Satan and we Satan
Speaker 3: himself kind of. So for example, let's say this way,
Speaker 3: look at Jesus when he's tempted in the desert, right,
Speaker 3: or he's tempted first, you know, it takes him on
Speaker 3: top of the temple. You know, he goes up and says,
Speaker 3: you know, throw yourself down, Angels will catch you, or
Speaker 3: go to the desert or the I'm sorry, the high mountain.
Speaker 3: He says, if you bow down, I'll give you all
Speaker 3: the kingdoms you can see. But at the very end
Speaker 3: of that, what is what does he say? What does
Speaker 3: it say in scripture? It says, Satan departed until an
Speaker 3: opportune time. Guess what, As our society is degrading, the
Speaker 3: time never seems more opportune than right now. Things are
Speaker 3: falling apart, it says, he walks around like a prowling
Speaker 3: lion looking for someone to devour.
Speaker 2: That is happening right now.
Speaker 3: That is all these little things that we're seeing come
Speaker 3: into our society and slowly disintegrate people's faith from the inside.
Speaker 2: And this is not just the non.
Speaker 3: Christian population, this is from within the church. Like justin saying,
Speaker 3: this is happening all around us, and we're seeing the
Speaker 3: degradation of what we call the Christian Church and the idea.
Speaker 3: The word Christian doesn't mean what we like to think
Speaker 3: it means sometimes because how many people out there call
Speaker 3: them Christians but never go to church. They call themselves
Speaker 3: that or not even that they go to church, but
Speaker 3: they don't have that faith. If you look at the
Speaker 3: way I look at this is. I always like to say,
Speaker 3: Paul had it the best way. I'm a big fan
Speaker 3: of Paul. He's top three guy that I'll look up
Speaker 3: when I get to heaven. But Paul is the best way.
Speaker 3: He said it when he's sitting there talking to it
Speaker 3: his Festus and then King Agrippa, right, he talks about
Speaker 3: I am a follower of the way Jesus said on
Speaker 3: the Way the truth in the life.
Speaker 2: Paul says, I'm a follower of the way.
Speaker 3: And I think that's what we're what we're getting into
Speaker 3: to now is all these other non salvation issues and
Speaker 3: all these other things that start separating the church. It's
Speaker 3: pulling us apart, it's picking apart the church because we're
Speaker 3: focusing too much on these non salvation issues. Any great
Speaker 3: military commander, what do they do, They divide and conquer.
Speaker 3: The church is more divided now than it's ever been.
Speaker 3: And we're falling, and we're falling apart, and we're seeing
Speaker 3: sex of what we would call the Christian Church that
Speaker 3: I think have totally lost it. And we keep going
Speaker 3: down that path, things are only going to get worse.
Speaker 3: And then that that idea of what is where is
Speaker 3: your salvation.
Speaker 2: Are you saved?
Speaker 5: Is this? Are you baptized?
Speaker 2: It's it's well, i've not.
Speaker 3: I've not been allowed to be parts of members of
Speaker 3: certain churches I've been in because I wasn't baptized their way.
Speaker 2: Is that a salvation issued? No, it's not. If I'm
Speaker 2: not baptized the way that you're bad. That's not what
Speaker 2: it says in the Bible.
Speaker 3: It's not by any work that I can do right,
Speaker 3: it's by it's by grace alone. It's by my faith
Speaker 3: in Jesus. It's not how I do something. It's not
Speaker 3: some ritual I go do. And that's where the church
Speaker 3: itself is really struggling. And the separation in the church
Speaker 3: is where I truly see Satan really working on us.
Speaker 3: And uh, I'm sorry, I'll digress. I get too fired.
Speaker 3: We we really I need to. And this is the
Speaker 3: thing is I believe that we need to separate our
Speaker 3: non salvation issues in the church. We need to set
Speaker 3: those asides. It's okay for us to not agree. Me
Speaker 3: and Justin definitely don't agree on a lot of things.
Speaker 2: We don't. But guess what, I love that guy and
Speaker 2: I know he's going to Heaven, right. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: I can love him and not agree with him, and
Speaker 3: we don't agree on a lot of things.
Speaker 2: But the ultimately the thing is is what we.
Speaker 3: Talk about that what does keep the main thing the
Speaker 3: main thing, and that's your salvation, that's your belief in Jesus,
Speaker 3: that's your fact that He died for you.
Speaker 2: Past that these other issues.
Speaker 3: Listen, I love diving into scripture. I think you know that,
Speaker 3: or I'll say digging. But we go through all this
Speaker 3: stuff and that's really what our podcast is all about,
Speaker 3: is we're taking the next step. We're diving in, taking
Speaker 3: it to the next level. We're trying to find things
Speaker 3: and Justin pushes me. I mean that guy, he's a
Speaker 3: brain and a half and he pushes me to try
Speaker 3: to learn more and be better and really look into this,
Speaker 3: into God's word and try to interpret these things.
Speaker 5: But in the end, iron sharpened and iron definitely.
Speaker 3: But if I sit there and at the end of
Speaker 3: the day, I misinterpreted something in Revelations, I didn't say
Speaker 3: it right, and somebody else in church kint it right,
Speaker 3: does it mean we're going to a different place. No,
Speaker 3: it's that separation, that separation that we are worried so
Speaker 3: much about is what's dividing us. It's dividing our church,
Speaker 3: and it's what we need to stay away from. We
Speaker 3: need to could go back and focus on the main thing.
Speaker 1: Justin I don't know, I might have to ask permission
Speaker 1: for this, but can I back it up?
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I went too long.
Speaker 4: It comes on our show and then he steals your line.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I asked permission for you. Steve Well, I
Speaker 1: just want to say that, you know, amen, Steve to
Speaker 1: to what you're saying there. But uh, in this context
Speaker 1: with his book, it is our hope that it would
Speaker 1: be a tool for parents not just to buy and
Speaker 1: give to their kids, but to start a conversation with them,
Speaker 1: start a journey with them as they kind of start
Speaker 1: to mature, opening the doors for them to test their faith,
Speaker 1: but walking together with them, relationally, open to the conversation,
Speaker 1: recognizing that, as Waverley said earlier, their faith is not
Speaker 1: going to get their kids by. Their kids' faith is
Speaker 1: what's going to get them by, And it's the testing
Speaker 1: of our faith that produces endurance. And as James tells
Speaker 1: James One tells us, it's it's not all the smooth
Speaker 1: sailing that's going to give us endurance or maturity. And
Speaker 1: there are no characters in the scriptures that we really
Speaker 1: know well that their faith is not severely tested, and
Speaker 1: so we should expect much the same, yet at the
Speaker 1: same time be prepared for it. So you know, that
Speaker 1: is I think I'm steve to you know, go directly
Speaker 1: at your your observations there. That's the only way your
Speaker 1: kids are going to survive the future, and frankly it's
Speaker 1: the only way we're going to survive.
Speaker 8: Well, guys, you got any kind of like a website,
Speaker 8: any kind of place where they can find your books,
Speaker 8: your work, your stuff you're putting out, Well.
Speaker 1: The best place to go is Amazon, and you can
Speaker 1: find searching for Proof and Faith there, And we've just
Speaker 1: been thrilled we've been named a couple of their categories,
Speaker 1: and we're certainly thankful to get to see that underway
Speaker 1: and see the popular there to the book growing and
Speaker 1: so go look it up searching for Proof and Faith
Speaker 1: Waverley Coward or a Hasty Coward. So that'd be a
Speaker 1: great place to go.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: What have you guys, got anything you want to say?
Speaker 4: In closing before we sign off, I would.
Speaker 6: Just encouraged parents, and you're a teenager who's watching listening
Speaker 6: to this podcast, don't be afraid to ask the hard questions.
Speaker 6: If you're a parent who's having a teenagers asking questions, don't.
Speaker 7: Be afraid of that. That's that's a really good.
Speaker 6: It's a really good sign if they're asking you in particular,
Speaker 6: but if they're asking the Lord, like, what exactly does
Speaker 6: it mean for me to have faith in a good.
Speaker 7: God with the world. My school life is so awful,
Speaker 7: people are so mean, or I've been bullied on so
Speaker 7: what is that?
Speaker 1: What exactly does that mean?
Speaker 6: So I would just and especially in particular with this
Speaker 6: revised uh chapter that we've we've added a new chapter
Speaker 6: in the revised book with the gender and stuff.
Speaker 7: I would encourage parents.
Speaker 6: Really up to date, really arm yourself with really arm
Speaker 6: yourself with wisdom.
Speaker 7: And I would say arm.
Speaker 6: Yourself with peers fellow parents who believe sound doctrine when
Speaker 6: it comes to all the questions that's around movement. So
Speaker 6: it's good to have an army people praying for your
Speaker 6: kids and army people who are speaking truth into theirs,
Speaker 6: into your child's peers.
Speaker 2: So good inner circle, YEP.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the chapter with the longest bibliography
Speaker 1: and the most resources is the chapter on the l
Speaker 1: b G t Q question. So there's lots of good
Speaker 1: resources there for parents to go to and video you know,
Speaker 1: videos and podcasts and UH and books to refer to. Well,
Speaker 1: I would just end by saying, justin that much again,
Speaker 1: I really do appreciate the work that you and Steve
Speaker 1: Ben have done together with a dig. Really, what we're
Speaker 1: about here in this book is digging deeper, not just
Speaker 1: allowing things to to fester without addressing them. So in
Speaker 1: any case, thanks so much forgivness time with you tonight.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you, love it.
Speaker 5: You gotta dig deep and get those roots deeper. You
Speaker 5: ain't gonna with stay in the storm.
Speaker 7: That's exactly right.
Speaker 2: Pull everybody out there, keep on digging.
Speaker 9: We feel the pot.
Speaker 7: Not thrue.
Speaker 9: Sorry, just to see through. Slow down, heroes and call
Speaker 9: me by name true will beft you find me then
Speaker 9: the same reals off the face. Well, files, let us
Speaker 9: be