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In a world that’s loud, the church does not have to remain silent. In a world that’s dark, the church can shine God’s light. Welcome to Light Talks with 922 Ministries, where we dive deep into real conversations, not just echoing the world’s noise but shedding God’s light on challenging topics. Let's talk!
In a world that's loud, the church does not have to remain silent. In a world that's dark, the church can shine God's light. Welcome to light talks, where we dive deep into real conversations, not just echoing the world's noise, but shedding God's light on challenging topics. Let's talk. Hello, everyone, and welcome to light talks, a new podcast at 922 ministries.
Jonathan:We are so glad that you are joining us, for some important conversations. Here at 9 to 2 Ministries. We love to talk about some of the things that maybe you don't hear many people talking about in our world. Some tough questions, that you don't get answers to. So that's what Light Talks is all about, bringing light to difficult, topics to dark places, bringing God's light in his word into those and, hopefully, to better equip you with with some answers or with some guidance on some things that maybe you've wondered.
Jonathan:My name is Jonathan. I'm the host of this podcast, and we are so glad that you're joining us here today. Before we get into our first guest here ever at Light Talks, just a little bit about this podcast. Here at our church at 92 Ministries, we started something called q and a Sunday. And it was one Sunday, after Christmas every year where we listened to the questions that our people had.
Jonathan:They submitted their top questions and, really nothing was out of bounds. They could ask any question that they wanted to and pastor Mike, who was the preaching pastor at our downtown campus, the core at 922 Ministries, he would open the book of the bible and find a passage and give an answer to some of people's toughest questions. The response was just so wonderful. A lot of people really enjoyed that, that the feedback was, can we can we do that more? Can we get more answers to some questions that maybe aren't preached about in sermons or talked about very often?
Jonathan:So that's what we wanna do here at Light Talks, is to answer some of those questions that maybe don't get a lot of time in the pulpit or maybe that you're wondering about. Maybe you've heard people around in the world talk about these topics, but we wanna be able to talk about it from God's word and shine his light onto these subjects. So what we would love for you to do, as we get started with this podcast is we would love for you to submit your questions. What have you always wondered about that, you really haven't heard a good answer for? What does god say about or maybe a question.
Jonathan:It could be anything. A question about life, a question about something in our current culture that you've been thinking about, a hot topic. How do I respond to this? What do I say about that? We would love to get those questions.
Jonathan:So in the description of this podcast, you're gonna find a link where you can submit your questions. Tell us what you're thinking about. Tell us what you're wondering about, and we'll talk about it. We just wanna we just wanna sit down and talk about those topics because God wants us to talk about those topics. He doesn't want us to stay silent on things that are uncomfortable or things that maybe feel like, the church should not be talking about.
Jonathan:We want to talk about those things. So that's what this podcast is gonna be, and that is what we want, for you to be able to participate in this. So check the description, find that link, and submit your quest questions today. My name is Jonathan Favorite. I'm gonna be the host of this podcast, and we're gonna bring on a different guest, our pastors, other people, and talk about these different topics.
Jonathan:But a little bit about me before we get to our esteemed guest over here, who's waiting to to talk. I'm a member of the staff here at 922 Ministries. I'm what's called a staff minister, which is an awesome, awesome position because you don't have to preach sermons. That's I just I just love the fact that I don't have to preach sermons. It's it's it's the it takes a special gift to be able to, every week, sit down and write out a sermon to share with in front of a lot of people.
Jonathan:Public speaking is very difficult for a lot of people, and it takes not only good public speaking skills, but, a good knowledge of the bible. So our pastors do a great job of that here. But I don't have to do any of that. Instead, I get to do all kinds of different types of ministry, whether it's music and worship and technology or even doing a podcast and having conversations. Those are things I get to do as a staff minister.
Jonathan:So, that's what I do here at 922. I have a a wife and 3 girls, which a lot of the topics that we're gonna talk about feel very applicable, because what we wanna do is also reach the people who are in the younger ages, the high school ages, college age, young adult, who are in the middle of our culture, in the middle of this world, and have a lot of those questions. Those are some of the questions my own kids will be struggling with or be, confronted with in their lives. So I love being able to have these conversations on this podcast. So we are very excited today for our very first episode to have our esteemed Pastor Michael here joining with us at Light Talks.
Jonathan:Thanks for being here, Pastor Michael.
Pastor Michael:It is awesome to be here. I'm honored to be the very first guest. Yes.
Jonathan:We only pick the best for don't don't let any of the pastors, say see that we you know, you're the best, obviously.
Pastor Michael:But just between you and me.
Jonathan:Just between you and me, no one else knows us. Exactly. Well, thanks for being here and being willing to talk about, some of the tough topics that that people are wondering about. We have a few questions already we're gonna hit in a minute. But first, a little bit about yourself.
Jonathan:What do you do here specifically at 922 Ministries? What's your family like? What are your passions? What are things you enjoy? Things like that.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. So, I'm the, I don't know what I am here. Assimilation pastor, I think, was my original official title, but it's kind of, shifted over the tie over time. Responsibilities have gone from one thing to another, as the years progress. Currently, I'm responsible for our, Starting Point Group, and that's the group that, introduces people to the Christian faith, to to the bible, to to, the the basic teachings of of what we believe and teach at 922 Ministries.
Pastor Michael:I love teaching that, and, other responsibilities would include being the digital ministries pastor. So, overseeing all the work that we do online and, kind of being responsible for theological content of that, answering tough questions, those sorts of things. Yeah. As, my family, I've got a wife and 6 children, and 3 of them are married. The 4th is about to get married, 1 in college, 1 in high school.
Pastor Michael:So, things are hopping at our household. Lots lots going on. Lots to think about. We've got, 5 grandchildren and, got a a 6th on the way, so that's exciting as well. I've had a lot of ministry experiences.
Pastor Michael:I've been in the ministry for 29 years. My first 12 years were as a missionary in Russia. Then I spent 9 years in Omaha, Nebraska and was a solo pastor there of a church of about 200 with a school of about a 100. And then, 88 years now at 922 ministries here. First 2 or 3 were at the Saint Peter campus and the last 5 or so at our core campus here.
Jonathan:So you've been a lot of places and done a
Pastor Michael:lot of things. Had a lot of experiences. None of the places I've served have had a lot of overlap. It's all been new experiences. All exciting in their own ways.
Jonathan:Yeah. That's interesting too. I I I know I've heard a lot too about your Russia experience when you were there, but just the fact that you've been in different very different cultures, but the gospel still is the same across all those cultures. I guess it's a fascinating thing that you probably have seen a lot of in your experience too. Yep.
Pastor Michael:Yep. Thinking of this, Russian babushka that, I I when I was coming back to the states, I said, what would you like me to tell to the people in America that made it possible for me to be here as a missionary? She said, tell them thank you and that there was something in my life that I always recognized was missing, and I just didn't know what it was. And then you shared the good news about Jesus with me, and that's what had been missing in my life, to know that I was loved, accepted, and forgiven by the Lord Jesus. That meant everything to me, so thank them for making it possible for you to be here.
Pastor Michael:I think that's true of everybody. No matter what the culture, that's that's what's needed by every human heart.
Jonathan:Which is, I think, part in part why we're doing this podcast because I'm sure there are a lot of questions that are bigger questions that that show that there's an issue with the the human heart and that we're missing something. And that's why we are asking all of these questions and wanna dig into the bible Exactly. About that. So Yeah. So So what we're doing here at Light Talks is, we're we're starting off with some questions that have already been submitted to us.
Jonathan:And, again, if you have questions and you think of them, fill out that form that's in the description. But we had a survey done anonymously to some high school students here that went to a Christian high school in our area and asked them, what are some of the big questions that they have? It could be, I think one of the questions was what's like the biggest struggle that might be a hindrance to your faith? Another question was, if you had a chance to just sit down with a pastor, what would be a question that you wanna ask them that you have not been able to ask? Which I thought is, like, the theme of what we're doing here with Light Talks is what are those questions that people want to ask, but they have not been able to do so, haven't had the safe space to do so.
Jonathan:And you guys are sermon writing sermons, you can't preach on all the different various questions. It's it's not enough time. So they've there were about 500 plus, more than 500 answers from these high school students. And so we're gonna take some of those questions, and we're just gonna kinda plop them down and just start talking about them. So
Pastor Michael:Sounds great.
Jonathan:Knowing you a little bit, I have an advantage because I know you enjoy science like I do. So we have this in common is before I got into ministry as a staff minister, I was gonna be a science high school teacher. That's what I was gonna do because I enjoyed I love science too. I was gonna teach, science at the high school level. That was, like, what I was gonna do.
Jonathan:But then got ahead of the plans, etcetera, etcetera. But I still love science. I still love discussing science and things like that. So because I know you're kinda similar in that vein, I thought we'd talk about some science questions. So
Pastor Michael:That sounds great. I I love science. I've always loved science. It's always been my favorite topic. If I hadn't become a pastor, I might have become a research scientist.
Jonathan:Yeah. I know you said that before.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. Yep. That's just the same
Jonathan:as studying Pretty pretty close on the what do you wanna be when you grow up? A little sheet pastor or research scientist?
Pastor Michael:Pretty pretty much the same thing. Yeah. But I think the way my brain is wired is I'm I'm analytical. I'm deliberative. I'm a critical thinker.
Pastor Michael:I love to think through I love to overthink through things, but, science just fascinates me. And, I'm I'm reading 2, 3, 5 articles a week easy on various things from cosmology to biology to even evolution things. I'll I'll read anything that comes across my news feed related to science. I love it. I love to think about it.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. And, think about it critically as well.
Jonathan:I think astronomy probably for me is the one that I like. Anything with the new, telescopes and stuff, the new pictures that
Pastor Michael:they're taking The James Webb Telescope is amazing.
Jonathan:That yeah. I just love looking at the those different images and Yeah. Anything coming back from Mars and the pictures and things about that. That's always interesting to me. So Fascinating.
Jonathan:Maybe before we get into some specific questions that, some high school age kids have, maybe let's just talk about and build that foundation of science and faith. Yep. Are the 2 mutually exclusive? Can they can can we put them both on the on the table and discuss them equally? Are they oil and water and can't be mixed together?
Jonathan:Like, where how do you approach that, when when it comes to science and and faith and religion and the bible?
Pastor Michael:I think this is one of the biggest misconceptions in our culture today that a person can either be a person of faith or they can be a a person of science, but you can't be both, obviously, because the 2 can't coexist, and that is just completely false. The truth is that they they occupy almost completely separate spheres. They they don't address the same questions and I don't think people realize that. Science seeks to find natural causes to the natural world that we live in, whereas, faith, a belief system, and in our case, the Christian faith, attempts to answer different questions. The meaning of life Mhmm.
Pastor Michael:The purpose of life, what is love? Mhmm. What what what is morality? What is right and wrong? Questions like these, science doesn't even attempt to answer because that's not it's it's not the field that it's interested in.
Pastor Michael:It's trying it's trying to present a hypothesis and then test it and then to see if if, what you think is true is true based on the testing. You just can't do that with those other topics I just mentioned. So the 2 really, are separate and both can coexist. In fact, I think I think Christians should be engaged in both and be passionate about both. I think we'll have a new appreciation for God as we study science, and we'll find his answers to life's biggest questions as we study
Jonathan:the faith. So may so you're saying that if, someone were to ask the question, how did how did the world start? In a sense, those are 2 different questions from the perspective of religion versus the perspective of science. Because one, you're trying to find, maybe the physical answer and the other, you're trying to finding the meaningful answer. Is that kinda what you mean with their kinda different questions?
Jonathan:Or do you think they're asking it? That's not what's people are asking really when they're wondering those things. I don't know if that
Pastor Michael:makes sense. And that's one of the areas where there might be a little bit of an overlap between the 2. Okay. So they don't completely occupy separate spheres. But but when you talk about origins and where everything came from, you're honestly not talking about a strictly scientific question.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. Because the truth is it's historical. It's something that happened in the past. We're talking about history, which also isn't in the realm of science Yeah. And interpretation of facts that are still evident and observable and testable today.
Pastor Michael:So to try to take what we can observe today and then extrapolate backwards is honestly going a little bit outside of the realm of science. And so science can't can't fully explain or address origins because that's not what it's intended. That's not what it's made for. It can't it can't do that because you can't observe and test what happened in the past.
Jonathan:Yeah. So maybe talk a little bit about that science. Science is strictly about observing and testing something. Yes. So then why why is, like, evolution in the origins always classified as science?
Pastor Michael:That's a very good question. I really don't think it should be. I think it does a disservice to science in doing so. So I I think a good portion of what is taught as the theory of evolution today is beyond the realm of science.
Jonathan:Mhmm.
Pastor Michael:And I am perfectly fine with teaching, some aspects of the theory of evolution. Not much of it, but some of it Yeah. Can be observed and tested, it through through experiments today. That part, I'm good with, and it's it's indisputable. We've observed it and we've tested it.
Pastor Michael:We it would be foolish to say that that's not happening or that's not true, the part that we can observe and test. But a majority of what is taught today is interpretation, interpretation of fossils, assumptions of the degree of changes that can take place even though they haven't been observed. Things that go beyond the sciences is where I have an issue with what's taught in our schools today.
Jonathan:I wonder if some people who are more skeptical of the faith might also say the same thing about, the Bible. It's a matter of interpretation. It's a matter of what you think about it. So then how do we put those 2 next to each other? Because then a lot of people might feel like, well, it's just what you think here, and it's just what you think here.
Jonathan:So nobody knows anything, so let's just all go home. Like, what do we do when we have maybe 2 different things that conflict each other from the faith realm and the science realm or the history realm? What do we what do we do, and how do we bring those together?
Pastor Michael:Well, I think there's 2 ways that we can know truth. That that something is true or it's not. Science is one way that truth can be determined. We have a a theory as to what is true, you know, how things work, and then we can test it with science, and then we can verify it or or find that it's not that way, and then we know what we thought was true isn't true. That that would be the scientific way of exploring truth.
Pastor Michael:The other way we can know truth is through authority, and that is when somebody who knows tells us. And, honestly, that's the way the vast majority of our learning takes place. We we learn in classrooms where somebody with authority tells us the way things are. We don't verify it, study it, and test it for ourselves by and large. Firsthand, we hear it through an authority who tells us.
Pastor Michael:So I I could if we're sitting in this room and some and there maybe there's a fire in this building. There's there's 2 ways we could know that. We we could smell the smoke or feel the heat. That would be the scientific verification that there's a a a fire in this building or a a guy in a, a fireman's, gear would break into this room with an ax in his hand and say, there's a fire in this building. You need to evacuate right now.
Pastor Michael:I I would say either way, I would be just assured that there's a fire. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan:And and
Pastor Michael:I would evacuate the building with either one of those methods. So when it comes to scripture, we in a sense, yeah, we are trusting that there's an authority behind that and that God is speaking to us in his word and what he says is true, therefore, because he is the authority.
Jonathan:I've never I've never thought about how much we do take on authority. Yeah. Like you say, from a teacher in a classroom or, from a news broadcast or from a social media post. You do we're just taking out that yeah. We didn't we don't go sit down and test it
Pastor Michael:ourselves. I'm fascinated by what's happening with the war in Ukraine, but I have not yet made a trip over there to verify a single fact.
Jonathan:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. We just take on someone who's telling us telling us that.
Jonathan:That's very interesting.
Pastor Michael:Yeah.
Jonathan:Even even with as much work I've done with science, I've never thought about how much how much we haven't tested.
Pastor Michael:That's that's
Jonathan:a good insight. Appreciate that. So some of the some of the questions that some of the teenagers brought forward, I thought were good ones and probably some common ones. Maybe we'll start with with this one. And I know you're and I know you teach on this in our starting point class where you kinda bring about the basics of the origins.
Jonathan:But how do we know that creation was literally 7 days, 7 24 hour periods as opposed to 7 eons or long periods of time.
Pastor Michael:How do we know it was 7 days? And we can also even add to that. How do we know it was in the recent past relatively?
Jonathan:Yeah. Yep.
Pastor Michael:Scientifically, we can't. So, again, this is something that would be outside of the realm of science. It happened in the past. Therefore, we we can't scientifically verify that the earth is young. We can't scientifically verify there were 6 days of creation and on 7th, God rested.
Pastor Michael:As far as the the biblical account of it, how can we be sure that what the Bible says, that when the Bible says 6 days, it didn't mean 6 eons. There, I think we just have to use the context. Context determines meaning. Context determines usage and and how we're talking. Does the bible say, for God, a day is like a 1000 years?
Pastor Michael:Yep. But not in Genesis 1 or 2. Yeah. It's in a different place, in a different context. It's actually talking about when Jesus returns.
Pastor Michael:It seems like it's been a long time, but for the lord, a day is like a 1000 years. Now to take that and then apply it to Genesis, well, that's just not good interpretation. That's not fair. We can't take usage in one place and and just apply it in another place. And when we speak, we we do have one intended meaning that we're trying to convey.
Pastor Michael:Like, as we film this podcast, this room is a little bit chilly.
Jonathan:Mhmm. Yes. And
Pastor Michael:and, so I could say to you, man, Jonathan, it's it's cold in here. And then you could rant and rave about how pastor Michael thinks that you are have a cold personality, that you know not how to make a warm environment for a podcast, and can you believe that he did that? Yeah. Well, that's not my intended meaning. You don't have the right to change my meaning when, obviously, we're in a cold environment.
Jonathan:Yeah.
Pastor Michael:So the same is true of of Genesis. There we believe there must be one intended meaning. Did God mean to convey that it's long eons of of time, or did God mean to convey that it's days? Well, just read the context, and it's abundantly clear. A day is defined.
Pastor Michael:There was evening and there was morning, day 1. Mhmm. There was evening and there was morning, day 2. Now the only way you could interpret it otherwise, and the context clearly says day, the only way you could interpret it otherwise would be to take the whole Genesis 12 and say, it's all intended to be a parable. The whole thing is not intended to be taken literally.
Pastor Michael:But, again, context tells has to tell us when we're dealing with a parable, when we're dealing with figurative language. Jesus did that when he told parables.
Jonathan:Parables. Yeah.
Pastor Michael:He would say, the kingdom of heaven is like. Now okay. Now we know there's a story comparison coming here. Mhmm. But look at Genesis 1:1.
Pastor Michael:In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Jonathan:Very factual. And
Pastor Michael:and then he goes on to explain how God created the heavens and the earth. So as as you read through the book of Genesis, like, when you get to Genesis 12 and it starts talking about Abraham, everybody agrees. Like, everybody. Not even just Christians. Abraham seems to have been a real historic person.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. Yeah. And Genesis 12 intersects with other human history, secular history. We can verify the dates for Abraham. That's those are the first dates we can say with relative certainty.
Pastor Michael:He he lived roughly 21100 BC. Yeah. And, everyone says, yeah, that's real history that's being talked about in Genesis 12. Well, you can back up from there and say, okay, where do we switch from history, from parable to history or back and forth? But you you back up, you you look at the style, you look at the way it's written, and it's all in the same style.
Pastor Michael:It's all introduced. This is the historical account of Mhmm. That have that occurs several times throughout the book of Genesis. So it's all written in the same style, in the same, historical context, and we're really stretching human language, to try to insist that that we have a parable here but not there.
Jonathan:So that's probably a bigger topic too is just biblical interpretation. Like, how do you properly and maybe some people don't understand or think about, and I know there's different views on how to interpret, like, the bible, but I like your illustration of how do we interpret what we're communicating with each other. Yeah. We do that with the context of the situation. We do that with the language we're using and the intended meaning.
Jonathan:And so what's the intended meaning God wanted for us to know when it comes to creation. So maybe, the the next follow-up question to that is why is that important? Like, if, a 6 day creation, 24 hour periods, like, why is it important? You know, like, well, we don't really know. Yeah.
Jonathan:Why is it important for us to know?
Pastor Michael:That that's a really great question
Jonathan:Yeah.
Pastor Michael:And an important question. From one from from one side, you could technically say it's not. Mhmm. So if somebody believes in the theory of evolution, lock, stock, and barrel, big bang, everything, and they believe that Jesus Christ is their lord and savior, the true son of God who died on a cross and took away their sin, and that through him they have eternal life, If they believe both of those things, will they be in heaven? The answer is actually yes.
Pastor Michael:Mhmm. Yeah. They will be. It's faith in Jesus that saves us, not faith in a young earth. Yeah.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. So what's the difference? Why do I spend a whole lesson on this and starting point? Why do we cover the topic at all? I think it's important because it does, it it does influence how we interpret scripture.
Pastor Michael:And what what tends to happen, and you can actually demonstrate this in in in some church in in church history, that that when creation is taken as a figurative account, you you you knock down a domino that starts to knock down a whole bunch of of other dominoes. If I can reinterpret Genesis 12 the way I want and I can make it say what I want it to say, then I can also change this account and that account. And, yeah, if if if, evolution is true and and our world is entirely operated by naturalistic causes and there are there is no such thing as miracles, the consequence is, well, then did was Jesus really born of the virgin Mary? Because that's a miracle. Yeah.
Pastor Michael:And, virgin births don't happen. We all know that, well, unless God intervenes with a miracle. Mhmm. We need that miracle for for our salvation to stand. Did Jesus here's here's the most essential one.
Pastor Michael:Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Yeah. Again, we all know people don't rise from the dead. Yeah. Well, unless God does a miracle, intervenes in the natural order of things, then there can be a resurrection.
Pastor Michael:There are actually, liberal Christian churches today that do not believe Jesus physically, bodily rose from the dead. That that's just a a metaphor, a parable. Jesus rose from the death of sin in quotes. Yeah. And Yeah.
Pastor Michael:And, his goal, his hope for us is that we will rise from the death of sin as well and live a life of love for other people.
Jonathan:Yeah.
Pastor Michael:And yet, in 1st Corinthians, the apostle Paul says, if Christ has not been raised, 1st Corinthians 15, you are still in your sins. You you you you do you're not gonna be saved if Christ has not been raised from the dead. The resurrection is literally the linchpin to the whole Christian faith. So I don't think it's really that far fetched to say, you can lose the resurrection if you lose Genesis 12 in a proper interpretation of it.
Jonathan:The entirety of the word of God all connected together. Yeah. I wonder too if some people, they they wrestle with this because of the pressure on the cultural side of evolution. And so many people say, well, it's scientific fact. And maybe you've heard people claim that evolution is scientific fact when, you know, it isn't.
Jonathan:That I wonder if there's some compromise to say, okay. Well, it could be, you know, I don't wanna cause a big fuss or, evolution does make good sense to me. I still believe in Jesus, though. So maybe the challenge for people is ask yourself, how are you looking at what the Bible is? I don't know.
Jonathan:That if do you have a what is your view of what the scriptures are? Is it really God's very word, or is it just a nice little story that could influence a lot of things?
Pastor Michael:Yeah. Is the Bible God's word, or does the Bible contain God's word? So it sounds similar, but it's actually different. If I had a bucket of pens and pencils and erasers, I could say this bucket contains pens Mhmm. And some other things too.
Pastor Michael:But we're only concerned about the pens. People who say the Bible contains God's word means, and it also contains some myths and some made up stories and some edits and some redactions and some additions. But if you dig hard enough, you're gonna find you're gonna find the kernel of God's truth in there somewhere Yeah. Which makes it extraordinarily subjective Yeah. And no two people will ever agree on what God says
Jonathan:Yeah.
Pastor Michael:If the case. We're a church body that says, no. It's, what god says is what god means, and that it's all god's word, god's truth, and it's all true from beginning to end.
Jonathan:And that takes faith. And that that takes faith. Not scientific. It's not something you can scientifically prove. It takes faith to trust that that is.
Jonathan:You can you can you can test historically the validity of the Bible. I think you can do that.
Pastor Michael:You you can do that, but I think you can also you can also test a belief system. And and here's where I everybody does have a belief system. And Yeah. I don't think people always admit that. Like, an atheist lives by a belief system.
Pastor Michael:By belief system, I mean, how do I operate in this world in which I find myself in a way that's meaningful to me? I need to find a way to cope with suffering. Whether I'm an atheist or a Christian or a Muslim, I I need to have a system of coping with suffering, with the setbacks of life. I need to have, I need to understand on some level what I believe love is and and how love should work. I I need to have a system of what I consider right and wrong and how do I develop that system and and is it consistent with, with does it help my relationships?
Pastor Michael:Is it good? Does it work in the world around me? I I need to have meaning and purpose for my life. And an atheist would say, I make my own. The Christian would say, it's derived from outside of me.
Pastor Michael:God himself gives it to me. But, some somebody has to have those things to operate in this world, even the atheist does. Everybody has their belief system. Some will push back and they don't like that name belief system.
Jonathan:Though. But, ties them to religion, the thought of religion. Right.
Pastor Michael:Right. I mean, maybe there's another name for it, but even a secularist has has a a a way that they operate in this world that is not purely scientific. Yeah. Because we all need that.
Jonathan:Yeah. That's a good point. So so to someone who, this there was a high school student who asked this question that also said, if you're talking to someone who's an unbeliever, and there's just this obvious stumbling block of, creation, a 7 day creation, for them that they're just not gonna get past, Is it more important to address that issue or move past it and focus on Jesus' death and resurrection? That was their question.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. That's a great question. I I don't think if somebody is an unbeliever, I'm not going to argue creation versus evolution. I'm I'm just not gonna go down that path. Mhmm.
Pastor Michael:I don't sometimes okay. So sometimes I think our initial talks remove barriers. They they they open the door for listening. So it you may I'm gonna now backtrack. I'm gonna say there may be a reason to start with it sometimes.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. Usually, I wouldn't, though. But, why why would you sometimes start with that? Somebody might say, evolution is clearly scientifically true, and the Bible says something different. Therefore, I will not listen to anything in the Bible or anything you, Christian, have to say.
Pastor Michael:Mhmm. So I might have to start with, yeah, but Yeah. The the evolution isn't as true as you maybe think it is. Yeah. Let's let's look at that theory a little bit more critically and see how scientific it actually is, and that that'll challenge their assumption, which might open the door to also having a dialogue about what god says, his authority, and and and about scripture and its truth.
Pastor Michael:So, I I I don't I don't like to talk about the peripheral things, which, creation evolution is more peripheral. I do wanna try to get to the heart and core of the Christian faith as quickly as I can, to try to if I can do an end around and get back to, yeah, but what about what about the guilt that you feel? What about the mistakes that you've made? And, did you know what the Bible says about that? Can I share that with you?
Pastor Michael:Because Yeah. Truth is there's a savior where you don't have to justify your guilt or minimize it or blame other people for it or or rationalize it, you can, you you have a solution for it. God has removed it from you. He's taken it to a cross. Let me tell you about Jesus.
Pastor Michael:Let me tell you all about Jesus. So whatever I have to do to get there as quickly as I can, I might have to address science first before I can to to tear down a wall so that real communication can take place about the rest?
Jonathan:Probably in your experiences in the past, you've seen this, but maybe for someone trying who's asking this question, maybe do a a quick evaluation of, is the person that I'm talking to stuck in their head with head knowledge issues, or they have heart heart issues such as a hurt or a pain or a betrayal or things like that that make them say, no. I don't like this god thing. Or, like, I can't logically figure it out. I'm open. I just don't understand.
Jonathan:Maybe maybe that's a place where they can evaluate and decide where to tackle it.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. And in my experience, it's it's usually it usually starts with the heart and not the head.
Jonathan:Yeah. Oh, they say
Pastor Michael:People don't typically study the science and then lose their faith. Yeah. It's something else that caused them to challenge. There was a struggle in life. There was a tragedy that happened, fill in the blank.
Pastor Michael:A church that hurt them. A spiritual leader who maybe even abused them. Something something happened along the way where they rejected that faith and then found lots of reasons why that was a good idea. And sometimes following the science, put that in quotes, following the science was one of the things they added to their list of reasons for rejecting the Christian faith, when really it wasn't a primary reason. It was just a way to support their decision to reject the
Jonathan:Christian faith. I'm reminded, like, of a story when I was in high school, kind of right along in this in this discussion. I had a friend who, really wasn't a Christian. I think he I'd probably classify him as agnostic. Not not really with with the whole god idea, but open to it.
Jonathan:And he asked me a question while driving home. We're we're going to hang in his his house at night. And he said he was asking a lot of his friends this question, just genuinely curious, and he wanted to hear my thoughts. Why is the universe so incredibly huge? We're just this tiny speck on this one little planet in this little solar system that's in this galaxy called the Milky Way.
Jonathan:But when you look to the Hubble Telescope picture that first famously came out, how many galaxies are in this little tiny pinhole of space? It's huge. Why is it so big? And I don't think God necessarily speaks to me, tells me what to say or words, but I think the spirit guided my answer. And and what I said was his name was, Nick.
Jonathan:I said, Nick, you know that I'm a Christian, and so I see I see the world in that that way. I think the universe is so huge because God just wanted to show off a little bit. And he just wanted to make something just so beautiful that we could just look up from our little tiny speck here and say, wow, that is amazing. God, you're awesome. Thanks for making this beautiful artist canvas in the sky for me to look at.
Jonathan:That's kinda how I view it. And he was quiet for a moment, and he's like, that's the best answer I have heard from anyone. Yep. Which, you know, I'm not smart enough to come up with an answer like that, but I think it it addressed maybe a heart issue a little bit was there's something missing.
Pastor Michael:Mhmm.
Jonathan:And there's a beauty to it, not just the intellectual side of it. There's a beauty to it that that God can do something so wonderful, and there's love behind it. Like, that's something he doesn't compute or has never computed for him before. So
Pastor Michael:Yeah. When you look at that, the structure of the universe, the unfathomable enormity of it, it I mean, it is just mind blowingly big.
Jonathan:It is.
Pastor Michael:You know, we always look at our our solar system models, and you got the sun and then Mercury and then Venus and then Earth, and they are all pretty close together. Neatly organized. Neatly organized in this little little area. No. Actually, if the sun were as big as a basketball, the Earth would be, you know, 300 feet away or whatever it would.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. I mean, it's just massive, massive distances that we can hardly even grasp just in our solar system.
Jonathan:One little solar system.
Pastor Michael:And it yeah. And the solar system is a tiny speck. And yeah. So why did God do that? I agree.
Pastor Michael:I he's just showing off. Yeah. Like like, if you look at that and your jaw drops and you say, wow. If if God could put, you know, the power, the size of that universe, if God could snap his fingers and say the word and all that all appeared, wow. What kind of God do we have?
Pastor Michael:That that's amazing. Yeah. I do have a second theory, though. Mine's so big. Okay.
Pastor Michael:So I'm a Star Trek fan. Oh. I wonder if maybe we're supposed to explore it in eternity when we've got forever. I have
Jonathan:had the same theory.
Pastor Michael:It is big. So
Jonathan:Any science fiction fan might be excited for the new heavens and the new earth because we might Exactly. We have an eternity to do research and science and Yep. Of God's new creation and that we have all this new place all these new places to explore. Yeah. Yeah.
Jonathan:And we have unlimited time. We don't have to worry about it.
Pastor Michael:So Exactly. Yep.
Jonathan:We're gonna geek out a little too much here. We should probably move on. Here is an interesting question too.
Pastor Michael:How
Jonathan:do we explain dinosaur fossils and carbon dating in the midst of all of this? Are we talking about, you know, creation and the theory of evolution and fossils? And, well, carbon dating, it dates things way older than the earth should be then. Like, how do we respond to those types of statements or arguments?
Pastor Michael:There was a a scientist that wrote a a long essay that was called the fossils say yes. And what he meant was yes to evolution, and he he his whole essay was all about how all the the fossils demonstrate that evolution is true. Then there was a a a young earth creationist who wrote a counter to that essay that said, the fossils say no. And then he wrote a long essay about how the fossils don't actually prove evolution at all and how you can interpret them in a very different way. And then there's actually a third guy who's the wisest, who wrote a one one more very short article that he just called fossils don't talk.
Pastor Michael:And, I think that's the that's honestly the most accurate approach. Fossils are a historical record. And what exactly do they say? It's open to a whole lot of interpretation. How old are they?
Pastor Michael:We don't exactly know. How did they form? That's even a question that's a little bit open to some discussion because, how many fossils are forming right now as we speak? They really aren't.
Jonathan:Mhmm.
Pastor Michael:So, you know, as far as the dating methods go, they are they are notably inaccurate and somewhat untestable. So, carbon 14 dating itself is limited to up to maybe 50000 years before it's no longer accurate, such measuring the radioactive decay of carbon. And it it requires calibration. Like, you have to have some set dates and times to know if your if your calibration is even right on these things. Yeah.
Pastor Michael:And and, well, obviously, once we get prehistory, we can't calibrate anymore. The rate of decay can change, and it's been proven that. They've had to adjust the the scale on that to adjust for the industrial revolution because so much more carbon was coming into the atmosphere. Yeah. But but what what what were the conditions 8 1000 years ago or 20000 years ago?
Pastor Michael:Suddenly, the scale is no longer verifiable. Then you get into other types of dating, and when you you have to use different types to get to 1,000,000 and billions, and there, I think the problem is even more magnified. How much of the mother element and daughter element were there in the start? We don't know. How much contamination took place in all those 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of years?
Pastor Michael:There's absolutely no way to know. How can we calibrate this so that we know that it's accurate? There there's no way to do it because we can't time travel. So I I would say those methods are notoriously inaccurate and impossible to finally verify. And I I wish that was spoken about in science textbooks.
Pastor Michael:Instead, these dates are all related as fact.
Jonathan:Yeah. That's that's sometimes I think the most challenging thing is it's communicated as fact already in the world. And to go against that, you'll be laughed at sometimes and scoffed. Yep. But I think I think what you're what you're saying is a good way to approach it.
Jonathan:Like, honestly, do how much do we really know? How much can we be sure? Scientist, I think, would if they if you really cornered them, they'd say, yeah. We really don't. We can't say that for certain.
Jonathan:Right. There's there's a lot of that in science that isn't communicated. Yep. Yep. So maybe to wrap up, similar, related question.
Jonathan:I know you talked about this, or had this question starting point a couple times too. But what about aliens? And should we believe in them? That was the question of a high school kid. And this came up in the news recently on Capitol Hill, I think, with some testimony and stuff.
Jonathan:Yeah. So how do you respond, or what do you say to people who are wondering about, is there life out there Yep. From the planets?
Pastor Michael:Yeah. My geeky science brain loves to think about this. And when I was in 7th or 8th grade, I I studied it extensively just because I thought it was cool to think about that there might be actually aliens out there. Certainly a lot of, UFOs. They got a new name for it now.
Pastor Michael:But, anyway, a new acronym. Where where did these things come from? What are they actually? There are a lot of unknown things, and and we don't know. The more, the more I thought about it, the more I've I've studied it.
Pastor Michael:I guess my personal feeling, and I'll I'll just go that far. We can't say for sure because God doesn't say one way or the other. We can't say for sure because science has improved it one way or the other. My personal suspicion is that there aren't alien there are not aliens. So far, life outside of Earth has not been found anywhere.
Pastor Michael:Personally, I would be surprised if we do find it. Like, even even microbial life on Mars would surprise me. It it might have to make even make me rethink some things Yeah. Think through some things again. But I I don't I don't think there is life outside of Earth.
Pastor Michael:I don't think there are aliens. And the reason I think that is that in in the creation account, 5 of the 6 days, God's attention is all on Earth. Mhmm. And one day, he spends on the whole rest of the universe. And it just it just seems unlikely to me that that there would be some kind of intelligent life for sure.
Pastor Michael:But even life in general, but especially intelligent life off of our planet, doesn't seem like that would, fit with the the creation account. Not saying it's impossible. Mhmm. Again, because the bible doesn't have a definitive answer, but that's my suspicion.
Jonathan:I think I've come to the same conclusion when you just read about, how God focuses on mankind. Mankind is just the the special creation. A lot of the science fiction you watch is, like, aliens are more powerful and gonna come here and destroy us, and it'll be a battle. And, but God made man the, really, the pinnacle of his creation. Could he have done something that he didn't tell us about?
Jonathan:Yes. But the the even the account, of the last days when Jesus comes back, God is basically moving in with us here on earth, the new earth Yep. And the new heavens is the the focus point is always the earth. Yep. Sure seems
Pastor Michael:to be.
Jonathan:And so why would he do a second thing where did and then you got the question, well, did they sin? Right. You know? And if they didn't sin, are they affected by our sin? Just so many other weird questions start to pop in, and I think we start to get distracted way out there when we should be focused here.
Jonathan:Exactly.
Pastor Michael:And even even the the phrase the new heavens and the new earth, word heavens really means that, you know, the universe, the sky the sky, everything up there. That's gonna be made new too. Yeah. So that makes me think there's at least not a moral intelligent life outside of our planet, but probably maybe doesn't totally exclude the possibility that god put life out there somewhere else. I just don't think.
Pastor Michael:Seems to me he probably didn't. Yeah. It seems to me too.
Jonathan:And I think regarding the, like, the news with the discussions, like, that that have been about UFOs or, yeah, whatever they are called now. I I think, personally, I also think there's a lot of secretive stuff that goes on at the government level and the research level that secrets they don't wanna share. And so who knows? People see weird stuff. Yeah.
Jonathan:What is that? And even people can testify. Yeah. That was weird. Well, because they don't know anything either or Yeah.
Jonathan:I don't know. So Yeah. I don't put my trust in what I what what happens on the news or what people think they saw too. But Exactly.
Pastor Michael:Who knows?
Jonathan:Who knows? Sometimes you just have to
Pastor Michael:It's an open question.
Jonathan:Sometimes it's okay to say, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know. We don't have all the answers. That's okay.
Jonathan:God doesn't, tell us everything. All of his secrecy has up his sleeve. So You
Pastor Michael:know, maybe I would say about science in general that people I I think it would be healthy and good for people to be as critical about science as they are about the Bible. Yeah. The Bible is always criticized and studied in-depth in the faults shown and, you know, so much critical thinking is applied to the Bible. I think the same amount of critical thinking should apply to science. Is there bias?
Pastor Michael:Is this actually scientific, or is this assumption? Is this, scientifically verified and tested, or is it an interpretation of evidence that isn't directly, that isn't directly testable? It's just indirect evidence. I think so much of what is taught as evolution today is at best indirect evidence and often supported by no direct evidence. Yeah.
Pastor Michael:Let's be critical about that. Let's make science better by being critical of the science and testing it ourselves. I think, I think we'd all be better off for that. Yeah.
Jonathan:I think, the one thing I've learned is that if you believe in evolution, especially, especially, they'll even call it neo neo Darwinism now, you are believing that there is somehow we got to this level of complexity in life through blind naturalistic unguided forces. So nothing was blindfolded and figured out how to create everything, basically. This is what the theory of evolution is, neo Darwinism is. Yeah. And that's that takes more faith to believe, at least from my perspective, more faith to believe that that there is a god who created everything.
Jonathan:And we so and even Paul talks about in in Romans, I think it is, where, no one will have an excuse. When they look at creation, they see there's gotta be someone behind this. And I think I even heard it said, we'd know that there's a god when we look at this creation because there's just no other way that this could've come about. We just don't know how he feels about us until we open the pages of scripture. That's where we that's where we find out how God feels about us.
Jonathan:Yep.
Pastor Michael:You know, if we were walking in the woods and we found a log cabin, we wouldn't say, oh, that's interesting how those trees fell in that pattern. You could almost live there. No. It's something as simple as a log cabin. We would see the structure and design of it, and we would immediately conclude somebody's been here before
Jonathan:Mhmm.
Pastor Michael:And somebody built a place to live. Yeah. And and the simplest single celled organism is so incredibly more complex than a a log cabin. Why why don't we make the same conclusion? Somebody had to design that.
Pastor Michael:Yeah. There must be an intelligence behind that. Yeah. It doesn't make sense otherwise.
Jonathan:Yeah. They call that also the watchmaker theory, I think. Yeah. If you find a watch in the forest, there had to have been a maker behind it Right. If you open it up.
Jonathan:Yep. So Yep. Well, Pastor Michael, thanks for this intellectually stimulating conversation.
Pastor Michael:It's been fun.
Jonathan:I know we could we could probably just keep going on, geek out with science, stuff, but we're gonna bore everybody. We could
Pastor Michael:make our first podcast 3 hours long.
Jonathan:We could. You know, why not? You know, you pastors don't get enough chance to talk in front of people. That's exactly right. Give you the time for that.
Jonathan:Well, thank you for this, discussion. And, remember, if you if you have questions about similar topics, maybe even if if there's something, that we didn't cover here, drop it in that form that's in the description. Click that link and let us know. Let us know what you're wondering. Let us know what we're what you're thinking about, and, we'd love to hear from you.
Jonathan:So thank you for joining with us, joining us on this first episode of Light Talks. Don't forget to subscribe. Share this podcast with someone who might, wanna know what more about, the topic of creation and what it means in your life. So thanks for joining us here today, and hope to see you back for our next episode of Light Talks with 922 Ministries.