Pray to Jesus or the Father? Who Wrote the Bible?

Show Notes

Episode 795: 
In this episode, we dive into a lively discussion that blends humor, theology, and practical insights about prayer and the formation of the Bible. We answer 2 questions from a listener, one which asks the question, "When I pray to the Lord, is this Jesus or God?" The second question asks "Who put the Bible together, and who decided which books would go where?"

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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Friday with the Bible Guys. It's so good to be here. It is. So we're shooting. We're shooting these episodes, and we're on the last one for this week. Yes, and this whole time, your wife has been blowing up your phone. She has just said that bird started. The reason why is because technically we're shooting this on a Wednesday. Yeah, and I have a small group in a couple of hours. So my wife is saying, Hey, we're buying pizza. I need two bags of ice when you come home. Don't forget this, do this. And then it was so also it was multitasking during this episode, is what I'm saying. Yes, he's putting together shopping list. I gotta get ice or Liz is gonna be mad at me. So, Hi, Liz, I just want you to know Chris is being very dedicated to making sure he's getting prepared for By the way, for a smallgret, are you doing small group this week? We're not. I'm traveling too, Okay. So the uh so, last week was you on video. You oh yeah, yeah, me and Bony, but. This week is myself on video. So I'm going to be teaching the group and then I'm gonna say, hey, now watch this video and be Liz and I and I feel pretty weird about that. I did it in the in January, you know, the winter. This semester that we did, I had all like, uh know, eighteen young adults all which is so it was weird because we put on the video of me talking and then I'd have to talk. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's almost exactly what we have. We have twenty one in our group. If everybody shows yeah right, that was the same thing for yeah, and then and then we have young adults. It's fun, It's very fun. So we are wrapping up our series that we promised to do, which is called Stump the Pastor. And if you want to write in a question every day we've been saying, please email us at info at the Bible guys dot com, or just comment on a YouTube page or something like that where you're able to post comments if you have any question at all, We would love to get there for future episodes. Good yeah, and so we want to jump into the first question. Sounds good to me, okay, So here. Is the first stump the pastor question. It says, when I pray to the Lord, is this Jesus or God? This is by the way, Mike G. Did I already say that? I know you didn't, Hi, mike G. Hi, Mike G. And by the way, I don't. It looks like you've had a scripture reference there. But can I tackle this one? Oh? Please? So this is something that I have always paid attention to. So a couple episodes ago, during this week, we talked about I said, I think it was on Monday, and I actually said, has anybody ever asked you to bless this item? Yes? Right, that's right, and it's I said, that's a whole other conversation altogether. Right. I remember being in conversation a very long time ago with a Bible professor and we had these great debates in classroom, and there were several things that stood out, and just for fun, I'll just give you one that's not this question. Then I'll lead it to my question. So did you know that nowhere in the New Testament that does Jesus ever say bless this food, nor is there any object being blessed. Right, So the Bible tells us that every blessing has been given. So in the Old Testament they would they would bless items, there would be things that be blessed. But the New Testament that has done away with because every blessing is given, and when Jesus prayed for food, he never said, bless this food. So therefore, if there's not blessed items, and and everything is blessed, then that means that there is no such thing technically theologically right as blessed food and unblessed food. There's no such thing. So to say something is unblessed. What did you mean by every blessing has been given? Well, Jesus gives us blessings freely, so so there's there's if every blessing has been given and not to mention. Uh again, we're talking about something, a thing, whether it be food or whether it be an object. Uh, is there there's no blessed object in the New Testament, right, So it's sort of two things. So Jesus, Jesus says blessings are given freely, and then also there's no blessed objects, so there's there's there's nothing that's unblessed and blessed. So those two things combined, and actually three things combined. I think, what do you mean by the word blessed. Well, again, that's that's the thing we pray. We say God blessed this food, right, indicating that it's not blessed. Right. And so then then the third thing combined would be the fact that Jesus never asked God to bless any food. Every time he prayed for food, he said thank you, thank you for. The food, for the food food. Anyway, all that to say, I just remember this big conversation in this in this uh you know, in this uh Bible it's debate where the professor says, theologically, I'm not going to ever really correct you if you say God bless this food. But technically there's no such thing as unblessed food and blessed food. So you don't have to pray for for anybody to bless your food because it's not unblessed. And he says, so, so playing praying for blessed this food is actually something that uh, that's irrelevant, and so it's and so and actually it was it's in the category of things we pray. That's wrong, right, Yeah, so that's what do you think about that? By the way, it's not it's not it's it's not one of our topics. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm reading along that way because it's it's you know, how should you pray the Lord? Yeah? Yeah, I think that. You know, when you're saying, bless this food to my body is a different thing than That's why I was asking you, what do you what do you mean by the word blessing? Yeah? Yeah, it is like put your magic pixie dust on it and make it special. Yeah. Well, is that what you're thinking, is blessing? I think I think you're asking I think you're saying that from like a Catholic perspective of blessing a thing. Oh yes, yeah, as opposed to us how I grew up. Yeah, as opposed to the word bless it. Blessed just means the favor of God. That's all it means. So blessed are you in fath favor? Blessed are the poor and spirit? He says happy. That's what the word blessed means. When Jesus talked about blessed, is this happy? Well, that's not what we pray. When we say bless the food, we don't say happy make the food, and we certainly don't say give the favor of God on this oatmeal. Yeah, so I think you think that you're praying a blessing on the food as opposed to most people say bless this food to my body. Yeah, yes, food period, to my body, as the application. Gives supernatural favor to this food and to my body in this moment, as opposed to just natural consumption of the food. I think that's what that's that's the request. Nothing inappropriate about it. I've opened up a big can of worm shitting. So so I would say I still adhere to the fact that UH, praying blessing over the food is unnecessary and uh, and and and I could maybe I'll come back around and and and qualify that. And then and then another thing was is UH. And I remember specifically talking about UH everywhere in the New Testament and in the Old Testament even it talks about the fact that Jesus's purpose is to reconcile us with a relationship with our heavenly Father. And every time that we pray, we pray to the heavenly Father. Every time Jesus prayed, he played to the Father. Every time that there is a prayer given, it's to the Father, and it's through Jesus. Jesus the mediator who stands between God and man. Right, Jesus the reconciler, the one who brings us back to the to the relationship that is broken in the garden of Eden, which is the Father. The fact that God the Father is the one who has the will for us, that's his role and you know, in in his personhood. So I always say, I'm not going to correct you. If you pray to Jesus, that's not a big deal because after all, we serve one God in three persons, God the Father's son, Holy Spirit right trindly, so he's still God. But theologically you're supposed to pray to the Father through Jesus Christ or in Jesus name, because Jesus is the bringer of us to God the Father. And then of course the Holy Spirit's job is the interpreter of those prayers. So the Spirit is the one who brings the prayer and communicates the prayer to the Father, and Jesus makes it possible for us to pray to the Father. Yeah, So the word theologically would imply the right way, right, this is what God commands. And I don't think that that's true. I didn't necessarily attach it to a command. I always thought logically meant the theology of the belief. Yeah, I would say biblically, because there's different theologies. That's what I'm saying, so biblically, Yeah, yeah, that's it's not so biblically. Yeah, I can't think of Are there any verses that are there any prayers in the Bible that aren't to the Father but are to the Spirit, say, or to the to the Son. I think the answer is no. I could pretty confidently say me, search it. If you find one, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be. Yeah, well, I tie with my hat in hand. But I was going to say, I often will pray to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus, which again is not inappropriate. It's not in a prose, not forbidden, that's correct. But what you're saying is all the prayers wind up being directed to the Father anyways, because it's it's his will. I'm saying that. I think prayers are intended for the Father. I think that's what the Bible indicates in every turn when it talks about praying, and then even when it talks about uh again, the role of the Father is the one that we should pray too because of his role. Oh oh oh, no, did you find one? Yeah? Is it New Testament or Old Testament? New Testament? Okay? Sure. As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus received my spirit. So he did pray. He did pray. Yeah. Well, I mean so that one's unmistakably directed at Jesus. Yeah. But in all defense, though, he was actually looking at Jesus when he said it, right, So in uh, this is not a little exception. He was looking to Jesus, is literally standing and staring. At but he's still praying to Jesus. Jesus. No, no, no, no, asked my father. Okay, Jesus didn't do that here, Hey, don't because he's standing on the right. Oh, talk to me, talk to him right right? Uh? Paul In two Corinthians twelve three times he begged the Lord to take away history in the flesh. And that's the lord is. It's in the Greek is Jesus. That's what that means. In the Greek Lord capital l is Jesus always. So it says here Lord refers to Jesus. Wait a minute, the Lord in the Old Testament capital l is God the Father. Yeah, but he's the King of kings and Lord of lords in the New Testament. Question that I'm scared to look it up. A skeptical on that one. Yeah, And then Revelation twenty two twenty ends with even so come quickly, Lord Jesus. Well is that a prayer? Sure? What, I'm ringing your bill? Okay, all right. So so Stephen Stephen's the is the is the monkey in the rest the wrench? Yeah? Rench? Yeah? And Rome Is ten thirteen is quoting Joel And I think that one is pointing at Jesus. Everyone who calls in the name of the Lord will be saved, right, because it's in direct connection to the verses just before it, where it says you have to believe that he rose again and invite him to be and declare that he is Lord. And I's talking about Jesus, that's not about anybody else. And everyone who calls them the name of the Lord will be saying interesting. Yeah, I've never read it that way. Yeah, I've always always read it. Believe in Jesus, who the Lord said, and then call upon the name of the Lord. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, anyways in life, but I don't mean to because I think I think fundamentally you're right. Fundamentally, the huge majority of prayers are to the Father. It's just not inappropriate. And it's not even poor theology to pray to Jesus in appropriate moments, or pray to the Holy Spirit because Stephen did, yeah, or pray to the Holy Spirit, and so it's not inappropriate. It's just theologically consistently in the Bible. The Father is the one from whom the will comes. Even Jesus said, not my will, but your will be done. Well, you know what's so interesting is how many years have you been graduated? Have you graduated from Bible College? What year did you graduate? Ninety ninety seven, so uh so, yeah, so I graduated a few years earlier than that, and so that's been over thirty years. And I still remembered that conversation. Yeah, blew your mind. Yeah. At the time, I remember, I wrote. Catholic kid, come in here and suddenly find out what what? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I remember being in that room and everybody having this conversation, and I remember thinking to myself, and to be honest with you, even even now as I'm saying this, I think the ammunition of some of the students in the room most likely was quoting Steven in Act chapter seven, right. So I remember watching the professor rebuttal back and forth and back and forth, and then ultimately the whole room concluded that you know that that was you know that we were meant to pray to God the Father. But I'm not sure I've ever thought about it since then, because again, like I said, I'm not the theology deep dive, you know, or Bible deep dive, because I'm not sure that it's really mattered. No, yeah, it's not mattered. So that ten thirteen, this is where I got hung up. So I didn't think of the Stephen part yep, but Romans because I quoted every Sunday. He says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. So declaring him Lord with your mouth, it's part of that, and then he says, for whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So you've defined that Jesus is the Lord. So you're calling on Jesus for salvation, right, right. So that is and that's indicat through prayer. You call on you call on God through. Any time you talk to God, it's a prayer. Yeah, Father, son or Holy Spirit, it's a prayer. Yeah, yeah, right, But I think it's appropriate. There been times when when I was going to in this situation and I'd be like, Holy Spirit, remind me of what the Word says in this situation, give me wisdom and discernment in this situation. And that's an appropriate thing, right, give me your spirit to to do, because that's his job. His job is to teach us and to remind us. That's what Jesus said. Sure. Right. There's been times when I prayed that the Holy Spirit would comfort somebody who was going through pain, and I wouldn't just send say God, you know, Father, send your spirit. I would just ask the Holy Spirit to comfort that person because that's what that's his job, that's what he does. Yeah, I think I would actually pray, Father, send your spirit. Yeah, but he's already sent a spirit. We already have a spirit. No, I know that. I'm just saying, oh, well, theologically, yeah, help me. You doesn't have to send the spirit. No, I know, I don't believe in spirit already here we have all the Holy Spirit will ever get. Yeah. Yeah, so I started there, so has a Holy Spirit to comfort comfort them. Because if the Holy Spirit is the one sending the message, bringing the prayer, yeah, then you just short circuit that and he doesn't have to get all the way there and back again. Yeah I'm joking, he's already here. But yeah, so that's really good. Anyway, let's go. Back there and back. And yet I didn't even catch it's joking. So so uh man, I'm not trying to throw a monkey wrench in there. I just I like that every idea that comes up, that's a new idea to me. I like the probit as much as possible, and the Bible is going to prove the Bible to be honest. I think people appreciate these kind of debates more than anything. In fact, my son in law, who sometimes listens in uh in Florida, he says that the most compelling times is when we have a discussion and say like, hey, what do you think. I don't know, I think, and we sort of either have different opinions or sorting it out, or it's it's us breaking down what other people think, which is like a stump to Pastard question. Yeah, sure, yeah, so I think fundamentally you are correct, because the will of God is what we're praying for every time, healing, strength, to share the Gospel with a friend, whatever, all, We're always praying for God's will. And so it's consistent as Jesus said, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done that that's always appropriate, and the will of God, the Father always comes comes to be. And then Jesus is one who fulfilled the will of the Father, and the Holy Spirit's the one who who empowers us. I almost forgot. We have another Bible question. Yeah, stump pastor, Well, so finish that question though. What was that question? The first one? Yeah, when I pray to when I pray to the Lord, is this Jesus or God? Yeah? Okay, yeah, so yeah, that's it. So when you pray to the Lord, you are praying to Jesus, And what you're saying is it's Jesus would pray to the Father, and that's mostly how all the prayers would go, would be the Father. But it's not inappropriate to pray to the Lord. Okay. And then the next question is who put the Bible together, not just the authors, but who decided which book would go where? Wow, holy cow, Now you said, I remember one time being in your office and we were having this conversation and you had a really good insight about this. So I'm just going to hand this to you to tackle it, and I'll chime in, Okay, because I could. I could definitely hang with the best of them. When it comes to the Bible says over twenty six hundred times it claims divine inspiration of itself, and three thousand, eight hundred and eight times it talks about how even though it was written by human authors, it was not from any No origin of the scriptures came from the human author right. It was God breathed through yes, yes, And they were actually distinctively writing the words of God. And it actually claims to be the God breathe or God's breath or the very words of God. So I could definitely hang on that end. It's hysterical. I had some notes for this one, yeah, and my iPad just went dead. Yeah, so let's do it this way. So what he's asking is, I'm assuming he believes the Bible is God's word, But how did we get it right? Because you're right, the Bible affirms over and over and over again that we're not hearing from men. We're hearing men bring God's words that God gave to them. So that's a big part of it. The thirty seven books of the Old Testament were established four hundred years before Jesus. That the rabbis and the top leaders of Israel had sorted through all of the books and they had certain requirements with regard to how do we know if this is validly from God? Is it inspired by God? And those thirty seven books were established four hundred years before Jesus. And that's what we would call the Old Testament. It's what the it's what is the Hebrew Bible. And by the way those were called, those were called the Lord's It thirty nine. I'm sorry what I say? Seven, Okay, I I have my notes in front me. Yep. The thirty nine books yeah, you're right, because there's twenty seven New Testament books, right, So the thirty nine Old Testament books those were called in the four hundred years before Jesus, they were called the Law and the Prophets. That's what they were called. So they didn't go around calling talking about the Bible. Right, the Hebrew people, the Israelite people, the Jewish people did not say so were studying the Bible today, they would have the Torah, that'd be the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Sexis, Viticus, numbers in Deuteronomy. They would have those books. They've talked about the Torah everything else. They talked about the Law and the Prophets, and it was their phrase. So when Jesus is teaching, Jesus knew about the thirty nine books that all the rabbis taught from that they referred to it as the law in the prophets. When they come to Jesus and they say, these lawyers come to Jesus and say, Jesus, what is the most important commandment from God? Jesus's will love the Lord your God with all your heart, always saw all your mind and all your strength. And the second is just like it, love your neighbors, yourself, and these two commandments fulfill all the law and the prophets. Yeah, ya, he says, all the law and prophets hang on these two capers. Yes, So he says that. So Jesus not only affirms the fact that the most important thing God wanted us to know from those first thirty nine books is love God, love people, but then he also affirms the validity of those thirty nine books because he called them by what they called them. He wasn't like the law and the prophets and some other books right, or some of the law and the prophets. He doesn't do that. He affirms all of the law and the prophets. So we can, under the authority of Jesus say the thirty nine books that had been established in the Old Testament are legitimate. Jesus views those of God's words. Those are God's words. So then that leaves us with the twenty six or twenty seven books in the New Testament. There were a few different rules. All of them were written between forty five AD and one hundred AD. So from Matthew to Revelation, everything that Paul wrote, Mark Luke, John Jude James, the author of Hebrews, They Peter. All those books were written between forty five AD and one hundred AD, and they were already being circulated among all the churches. The churches were using them. There were other books floating around, but for the most part, it was these and the rules that they established in that first one hundred and fifty years of Christianity. Was was it written by an eyewitness? Was it written claimed to be written under the authority of the Holy Spirit, the inspirational Holy Spirit? Does it have an apostolic connection in some way, the Apostles being Peter James, John right, the Disciples Paul Also, does it have some connection directly to an apostle? Mark was not an apostle, but he was Peter's secretary, right, So you have that. So was it connected to the Apostles? And then did the Apostles affirm the other writings? Did they quote from them, did they refer to them, did they teach them? Or did the apostles initial group of disciples quote them? So that gets you within one hundred years of Jesus right, If the disciples of the Apostles are quoting these other books, and what's really a phenomenal is before the two fifties. We can recreate from the writings of the ancient church fathers. We can recreate almost the entire New Testament from their own writings quoting the New Testament. But the New Testament was not codified these twenty nine books only until three forty I think it was three hundred maybe at the the the Council of Carthage. I should look that up. It might be two forty ad. Let me look it up. The Council of Carthage. And the Council of Carthage is when they determined, okay, these twenty nine books three ninety seven ady, and it was in what is now modern day Tunisia, and they got together and they determined all twenty nine or twenty seven books of the New Testament. They verified, yes, we still believe in the thirty nine books of the Old Testament. And they were able to rebuild all of this. And you can do it even apart from the Bible. You can redo it, rebuild it from those first disciples, after the disciples, quoting each other's books. And so this is one of the things that you could recognize that they recognize the scripture. It's interesting. Paul refers to some of Peter's writings as scripture, right, so even at that point they were recognizing it. So some people would say, oh, well, the Bible wasn't codified until the Catholics did it, and you know the Council on Ica or whatever, Well they did it before that, and at the Council of Carthage, and then they'll say, oh, it was men that made these choices. All they were doing was verifying whether or not all of the earliest believers, the walkers with Jesus, believed that these other writings were truly from God, and that's what they did. So then when you it'll come up, like if you ever watch on the Discovery Channel or something, they say, oh, what about the Gospel of Mary Magdalene or the Gospel of Judas or whatever. There are no historical references to those until hundreds of years after they were claimed to be written. And yet within less than one hundred years of Jesus, within sixty years of the Book of Mark being written, they were already verifying that that's the Book of Mark. And it's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later, hundreds of years later before you get to anything like the Gospel of mag Magdalene, Gospel of Judas, and those books were widely disregarded even by the first people who had a chance to see them, let alone the earliest apostles never saw them because they didn't exist. So that's my little speech on that. If you were wondering, yes, sir, I remember that cover what you were thinking about it was yeah. Because you have a lot of knowledge when it comes to that, and I knew that you sort of knew that, like I would never be able to come up with that, and I certainly didn't. If I would have known that that was gonna be the question, I could have certainly researched that well. So the here's what I say, because we've gone just a little bit long on this. If you're curious about it, Norm Geisler, just look up Norm Geisler's best books on how we got the Bible. He's got one called From God to Us. He's got a couple of others where he really digs into the history of it. It's academic. You're gonna have to work through it. It's pretty amazing. And then any of the books by Lee Strobel, you can start to dig in and he recommends, you know, case for Christ, the case for the real Jesus, the case for a creator, all these things. Any of those he digs into how can we trust scripture, particularly the case for Christ? So either of those books be great. And then lastly, let me say, Josh and Norm McDowell wrote a book called Unshakable Truth and they dig in pretty deeply, but it's simple to read. They dig in pretty deeply on how can we know that we have the Word of God today? That's great, Yeah, that is definitely our time. That's one of the longest ever. Congratulations, it's the loonest episode on a Friday alright. In fact, if I wait six more seconds, we'll go in the twenty eight mark. That'll be a record. Okay, And here we go and twenty minutes good bye. See letter