Matt Slick Live

The following program is recorded content created by the Truth Network. It's Matt Slick live. Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at CARM.org. When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick live.

Francis, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome to the show. It's me, Matt Slick, and you're listening to Matt Slick live.

Now, just to let you guys know, on today's date, 4-24, you're 24, so hey, 4-24-24, how about that? We're having, or not we, but Rumble is having a problem. So normally, we simulcast the show onto Facebook, onto, let's see, we on YouTube and on Rumble. And I don't know if we do Twitter or not, maybe they can type it in, tell me in private chat there where it all goes out to. But anyway, we also do it to Rumble, but Rumble's having problems. So if you can't find me on Rumble, that's why it's not our fault.

I tried twice, and they have a notice up, something's wrong with it, they're having problems with their uploads and stuff like that. So that's what it is for today. All right, Matt Slick hyphen live. Yeah, we're going there. Oh, you're not doing the other one. How about, isn't it going to Facebook, too?

Facebook, live on YouTube, yeah, Facebook. And do we do X? We're supposed to do X in Facebook.

And Facebook, Karm.org, and Laura's typing it in as fast as she can. And no X, so X doesn't mark the spot? Heh, heh, heh.

That's pretty bad. All right, hey, look, if you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 8772072276. And only posts and X. OK, that's interesting. I thought you actually did video. I don't know. You know, you've got to redo it. I've been thinking about something today. I'm going to get the phone number out again, but 8772072276. All right, so if any of you out there know stuff about what I'm going to talk about, it has to do with search engines and things like that, pay attention.

See if you have any good advice. So years ago, when I started Karm 28 years ago, Karm was basically the only thing on the internet that did what it did. And when you type in an article or type in a question, Karm was number one in almost everything.

It was just constant like that for years and years and years. And we were doing great. And then in 2016, we're having 97,000 page views a day. 97,000 visitors a day.

You know, that means a lot. It was a lot of traffic. And then we had a server problem, and our site crashed. It was down for two days, and then we got it running again. And it wasn't quite fixed right because it was a big complicated thing. And we noticed that the traffic around that time started going down and down. All right, so this went on. And we've since got it fixed.

Everything's been fixed. And now we are stuck around 30,000 page views a day, 30 to 33,000 a day. Or is it page views? Or is it, I don't know how many page views. I think it's page views.

Page view means someone comes into the site and looks at a page. And so we are having about 18,000 visitors a day. And about 15,000 are coming back on a regular basis daily.

So 18,000 a day. Okay. Well, anyway, I've been thinking about this. And I'm in the middle of a bunch of projects.

I really can't focus on it too much. But the site does not come up on first or second pages hardly anymore on research. You know, you type in a query, like I'm going to do it right now. Let's see. You know, what is the Trinity?

And see if it even shows up. It used to be that when you typed in just what is the Trinity, it was always number one. It was the number one article was from CARM. And now there's just a lot of other sites before, and I'm looking, I'm scanning. And CARM doesn't even show up in the first page so far. Nothing.

And, you know, anyway, so I'm not whining complaining. It's just that if anybody knows what to do to help fix this kind of stuff, I'm still looking on this, and it's still not on the first page, and there's quite a few on the first page. Wow.

It used to be always be number one. And interesting. So I'm just going down like 30 references here, and it's just not even showing up. So I'll give up looking.

So anyway, I just don't know what to do. And the site has got 6,000 articles, well, 6, 7, I don't even know how many. How many of those have, Laura, do you know? So we have thousands and thousands of articles.

We're one of the oldest websites out there doing what we're doing. And I think the market's pretty much saturated. And so, yeah, there's over 6,000. I know I've written about 6,000. I think there's like 7,000 articles or something like that. I don't know.

Maybe Laura can tell me she knows it. But I'm just trying to figure out how to get more stuff going better, more better. And maybe if someone out there goes, yeah, I know what to do. You know, give me a call, give me an email or a reference or something like that.

Because we want to get as much stuff as we're going. And what we're going to be doing is working on some video stuff. We're working on something not quite released yet where we should be able to get a lot more video stuff going. And I'm thinking about just sitting here in my chair. And taking a video topic and just talking about it. And just doing impromptu discussions and things. And just release them as videos. And do that a lot. Because it's like doing it on radio.

You know, I do the same kind of thing on radio. Anyway, just a thought. Not whining, not complaining. I think there's a lot of competition out there now. But before, there wasn't any really competition. And I was always number one.

And even when the competition was starting, you know, like 15 years ago, 15, maybe 20 years ago, Karm was still up there. And so now, here we are. So I am thinking. So yeah, just to let people know, the Rumble server is having problems on their end. And they're not able to get upload or do something. So that's why we're not doing that. So we're not broadcasting to them today.

But hopefully, Lord willing, tomorrow. All right, I want to give you a call, 877-207-2276. Jesse from Arizona. Welcome. You are on the air.

Hey, Matt. Thank you for taking my call. Sure. I think I talked to you a few times over the years. And you've helped me a lot. And I don't have a question. But I just wanted to share some insight.

I don't know if you're aware of it. But I'm a former Jehovah's Witness elder. I was for 40 years.

And I was an elder for 13 years. I always believed in the divinity of Christ. And my name is Jesus.

And my mom, since I was a baby, instilled the love of Jesus in me. And so it's like persecution. When you're a Jehovah's Witness and you believe in the divinity of Christ, you're going to suffer a lot. It's like being behind enemy lines. But anyways, are you aware of everything going in the religion right now, the Jehovah's Witnesses? No, I'm not. I've really been out of contact with what's going on.

This hasn't been a necessity. What's going on? Tell me. They're self-destructing. You know, they're real proud that they don't have a creed. They don't have a constitution. They claim that Jehovah's is their constitution, Jehovah's is their creed. So they don't need anything. And right now, you see it.

Like, for instance, let me just shoot some little things at you. The men can wear beards now. Really? The Bronx of Rutherford today, yeah, they can wear beards.

So they're walking around with a little testosterone in their town, because they're all metrosexual men. That's big. Women can wear pants now in the ministry. Really? Those are big.

They're relaxing. Those are big things. Wow. Yeah, and so you're going to see them out in the door-to-door ministry and in the street corners with women with pants. And then I think some of the blood transfusion, some of it is being made into a conscientious decision over the fact issues. I mean, it's just, but what happened is two days ago was nice on the 14th. So for the last 100 years, we always gathered to do the Last Supper or the Lord's evening meal on the Jewish Passover. But this year, they did it real close to the Christian Easter. So they're not the same Jehovah's Witness church they were for the last 100 years. They're changing radically and fast. But my, if I have one question.

Well, let me ask you that. They still only have communion for the 144,000, right? See, that's the thing. They're not talking about the 144,000. They're not talking about the 1914, because their religion had a date stamp on it. They preached 1975 and 1914. Now all the 1914 people are dead. So they're not bringing that issue up as much.

It's not prominent like it used to be. And so I guess my question is this. Since they didn't believe Jesus is the rock, they didn't hold Jesus to be a foundation, the God. God incarnate. The word becomes flesh.

Since they didn't put emphasis on that, they put it in Jehovah and the Watchtower. I tell everybody that in my circle, what we're going to see is we're going to see like 10 plagues come upon the Jehovah's Witnesses, with the beards, the blood transfusions, the child sexual abuse. Well, wait, wait, wait.

Hold on. Now you've got to be curious. Now I know there's a lot of abuse that's gone on.

There's lawsuits and things like that, some predators in there. But you mean 10 plagues because the Jehovah's Witnesses are what? I don't get that. Because they didn't have Jesus as a foundation. They're a rudderless boat in the ocean.

Since they didn't have Jesus as a foundation, I think that they have destined themselves, they have cursed themselves to the plagues of Babylon. You know, get out of here, my people. Let me give you an example. Oh, you mean, what you mean is not literally the same 10 plagues, but that it's going to fall apart, it's going to implode. OK, now I got you. Exactly. That's what I'm thinking, symbolically they're imploding.

Let me give you an idea. During the pandemic, they were the first organization to close the churches. They didn't give the publishers a chance to even. They lived like if it was Babylon. The governing body leadership, he even went on the public air. He goes, cheer up, it's only going to get worse. They really believe that a pandemic was sort of the Great Tribulation. No way they did.

Yeah, you can find it on YouTube. Go to Anthony Morris, he goes, cheer up, it's only going to get worse. And what happened now, now he's been removed from the governing body. That's another plague that I'm talking about. They're self-destructing. But my question to you, if I had to have one question, could it be because they turned their back on Jesus and embraced the concept of Jehovah and demoted Jesus to like third in charge, like lower than the Secretary of State, you know? Could that be why they're wandering aimlessly now? Well, they're wandering aimlessly, or if they are, is because there's a non-Christian cult. It's not the true God, the true Christ, the true gospel. They've always been wandering. It's just a mind-controlled cult. That's what it's been. Correct, correct.

But now it's visible to even the untrained eye. Now the effects of the wandering aimlessly, people are starting to see, whoa, the wearing of the pants, the, wait, you were fanatic about beards. You were fanatic about the blood issue. You guys even went to the death over it. Yeah. Yeah, they excommunicated people over it. So yeah, well, this means then that if what you're saying is true, there's more going on, and that would mean that a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses are gonna be severely challenged, and maybe the Christians could be there to help pick up the pieces. I don't know.

We'll see. I don't know how, because the fanaticism is even worse. They're kind of like in denial, like Baghdad Bob, remember during the Gulf War?

The forces are not near us. But they really believe, like for instance, they really believe this is a sign of the times. So anything that comes out negative about them, it reinforces their belief that the world is against them, even though the world doesn't even know they're here. Well, people know who the Jehovah's Witnesses are. But yeah, it's interesting what you're saying.

I've not had to study them much at all lately because I just haven't. But it'll be interesting to kind of check things out. Hey, there's a break, man.

We gotta get going. It's kind of fun. Yeah. It's kind of fun.

Yeah. But hey, man, thanks a lot, Jesse. We really appreciate that. Okay, we got a break.

Do you want to hold, or are you... No, no, I just want to tell you, it wouldn't be funny if our brothers weren't suffering. That's all. Oh, okay. All right, buddy. God bless, man.

Hey, folks, there's a break. We'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everyone, welcome back to the show. If you want to give me a call, all you have to do is dial 877-207-2276.

Marty from North Carolina, welcome. You're on the air. Hey, Matt, thanks for coming to work today. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're here today. I'm always at work, except Sundays. And then I work 10% of my time. Yeah.

I know. I got a lot of questions, so you can cut me off at any time. I usually listen to you while I'm driving.

So today I'm parked safely. I have a pen in hand. So my first question is something I've heard you mention on the phone, on the radio show, about which version of the Bible that you recommend or that you use. Yeah, I use the NASB 95.

That's what I use now. N-E-S-B. N-A-S-B, N-A-S-B. But there's another Bible I've heard about and I've checked, and I'm gonna look into it. And it's based off the NASB, but they include the word Yahweh in the Old Testament in different places. So I like that.

But what I normally use is the NASB 95 version. It's just my habit. It's pretty good.

Mm-hmm. I've read a couple versions and I'm 70 and I'm reading through the Bible again. And I love that, and I'm now in Samuel and I love the story about King David. But before I get to that, I wanted to ask you, is there something that I could get when I'm in the chapters of the Bible, the books of the Bible that I know I'm gonna have a problem with? And those problems, I'm gonna have a problem in Jeremiah, I'm gonna have a problem in Isaiah, and I'm gonna have a problem in Daniel. Is there any aid that you can give me that will help me better understand those books of the Bible?

Sure. What you could do is, for example, you can just get a single-volume commentary. And there are a lot of good ones. So you can go to a Bible bookstore or you can even go online. And what I would do first is recommend, just do recommended single-volume Bible commentaries.

They're usually thick, 800 pages or something like that. And it'll go through every chapter of the Bible in order as you're reading them and you can get the basics of what's going on. And so I have a couple of those that I've used over the years.

And let me go to here, let's see. Some of the ones that I have on my Bible program now are, let's see, one of the ones that I'm using here. This one is the, oh, that's the word pictures in New Testament, I don't need that when it goes here.

Because I have several, I just use them. The Bible, yeah, that's what I was thinking. The Bible Knowledge Commentary. It's pretty decent, the Bible Knowledge Commentary. And you can check that out, okay.

And let's see, there's another one. That the Bible Reader's Companion, it's good. You know, they're just general things. I read through them, I don't agree with everything that the commentators say, but that's okay. And so I recommend a single, it's called a single-volume commentary.

And you can get something like that, okay? All right, that's helpful. Now, you can cut me off at any time, but I'm reading. Yeah, the New Bible Commentary's also good.

Go ahead, okay, go ahead. The New Bible Commentary. So this is what you're giving me, the Bible Knowledge Commentary, the Bible Reader's Commentary, and the New Bible. Yeah, just get one of those. And if you really wanna study, you can just find commentaries on single books. And they can be quite big, and they go into far more detail. You can also go online, for example, at blueletterbible.com.

And you can get commentaries and stuff there for free. So, you know, go to the, like for example, John 3.16. And I'm gonna do this in the NASB.

95, I hit Go. And then over there on John 3.16, it has Tools. And then you'll see tabs coming up, and it'll say Commentaries. And then you can read commentaries and stuff like that. And you have all kinds, okay?

Okay, all right, sounds good, you're helping me. Now, you can cut me off, but I wanna talk about what I'm reading in Samuel. And of course, this is about when King David is, when Samuel takes David to be the next king. And one of the things I noticed is, first of all, they talk in 1 Samuel 16, in the version that I'm reading, is that David is not, he's a ruddy kid. He's not very comely. And then later on, Samuel dresses him, I think it's in 1 Samuel 18. He dresses him up for battle. And then afterwards, he asks who's Sonny is. Well, he knows who Sonny is. Does the guy have dementia?

What's up with him? It might be that he didn't know it was David. Because David was a musician, and it says beautiful eyes, handsome appearance in 1 Samuel 16.12. So I have to read it in context, but when David went out, it's like, who is this guy? And then we're gonna put him in armor, and he said no, and he walks out. It doesn't mean that, because Saul was probably getting older, and his vision was probably not as good, and maybe he didn't know who it was and wasn't expecting David.

But I don't know for sure, I have to check that out. I know, and then the other thing that confuses me some is that it says an evil spirit came on Saul from God. And that confused me, it said it several times, and I thought God does not tempt. I've been taught that God does not tempt.

All right, and now I'm gonna have to teach you a little bit of logic, all right? So God does not tempt, okay, that's correct. He does not do it by his own hand, he does not tempt anybody.

Okay, now, I'm gonna step sideways here and teach a concept, and then we'll come back to this. So in the garden of Adam and Eve, Adam freely chose to rebel against God and eat the fruit. No one forced him to do it, he did it of his own. He is what's called then the efficient cause of his own sin. He caused it himself, not God. The proximate cause, we have efficient cause, is the agent who actually does it. The proximate cause is the condition in which the agent acts. The proximate cause was that God put the garden there, the trees there, Adam and Eve there, and let the devil come in. So God let him come in and let the situation be, God ordained that situation to be, and so God is what we call the proximate cause of the sin of Adam, or the fall of Adam. But when we say proximate, we're not saying that God is the efficient cause, in that God directly by his own hand caused it. No, God allowed circumstances to come into play where Adam, with his own freedom, no one forced him, chose to rebel, so he's the efficient cause. So the efficient cause is the one who's responsible for his sin. The proximate cause is not responsible for his sin.

So think of those two things. So it came about when evil spirit from God came to Saul. It's like saying that the Lord let an evil spirit go to Saul and do what the evil spirit would do, but God's not the efficient cause, he's the proximate cause. So he's not culpable, and he's not the one who did the tempting, but he allowed a spirit to go to tempt, just like God allowed Satan to come into the garden to deceive Eve. God allowed that, knowing exactly what was gonna happen.

So he's not the efficient cause, he's the proximate cause, and the distinction between efficient and proximate causation is also the distinction between culpability, okay? Oh, there's a break, hold on. Okay, I'm, I'm. Hope that helps, I bet we get a break, so hold on. We'll get back to you after the break, okay?

Because he can formulate your question there. Hey folks, we'll be right back after these messages. If you wanna give me a call, all you gotta do is dial 877-207-2276, we'll be right back. We'll be right back. It's Matt Slick live, taking your calls at 877-207-2276. Here's Matt Slick. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show.

Let's get back on with Marty from North Carolina. You still there? Yeah, I'm here. Okay, this is a quick question. I believe after reading the Old Testament again several times in my life, I'm gonna see lots some day in heaven, because the Bible said we're gonna see that righteous man, bring him out of Sodom and Gomorrah. I'm not sure about Saul. Am I gonna see Saul in heaven?

What do you think? I don't know. An evil spirit came from Saul. He started attacking David and turned against him, but David didn't turn against him. So it's a tough one. And he, you know, he sought the occultic stuff and Samuel and, you know, so I can't tell you he will or will not.

If I can find a verse in there where God says, you are my son or you are mine and I will love you and will not forsake you, well then we could say we'd be in heaven, but I just don't know. I haven't read that for a while to see. But a good question though. It is a good question.

I'll leave you with this one. A lot of times people tell me that, that want to say that gay marriage is okay, that the relationship between Jonathan and David was, I don't believe that because it says over and over again that David behaved himself wisely. So are you in agreement with that? There was no homosexuality there. It was, it's something that the homosexual community, the alphabet mob seeks to use the Bible, the holiness of God to justify their sin. And when it talks about them, you know, holy kisses and things like that, leaning on each other, this is not homosexuality because that was absolutely against the teachings of God. And so they were godly people and David would not have done that. David's desire was to dwell in the house of the Lord. So when the alphabet mob says something like this, it's just their ignorance and their twisting of scripture and they want to use God to justify their sin.

And so the judgment on them is even worse. Last question, I promise. Do you know Joseph Prince, the pastor? I know who he is, yes. Stay away from him.

Do you have an opinion on him? Yeah, stay away. Okay. And I mean, you need to do more direct stuff in quotes. You know, I've only got 8,000 things to do. I'm literally working on an article while we're talking.

That's how much I work. So, I mean, during the break, yeah, I was researching, I'm doing an article on what are the main topics of the letters of the seven churches of revelation. So I just did, well, during the break I did Cyatira. And so, next I have to do Sardis.

So, yeah, there's just a lot to do. But any rate, now what were we talking about? I just lost my train of thought. I was asking about Joseph Prince.

Oh, yeah, Joseph Prince, so thanks. So I have a list of people I'm supposed to analyze as well. And just haven't gotten to it. I have close, I have about 830 or 840 questions I'm supposed to get to. That's, and I just deleted over the past few days, I just deleted about 3,000 emails because I just can't get to them.

I just said we're done, just not even. I have, I'm gonna whine a little bit. I have voicemails I have to get to, which I haven't gotten to in a few days. I'm gonna do that.

So there's just a lot, just a lot. I know, I appreciate you coming to work. I'm actually gonna go to CARM. I'm gonna sign up for a little wee little monthly thing for you because I listen to you every day on the way home and God bless you and yours. Well, thank you very much and God bless you.

Thanks, appreciate it, keep listening. Okay, bye. All right, let's get to, well if you wanna give me a call, 877-207-2276. Let's get to Tracy from Charlotte, North Carolina. Tracy, welcome, you're on the air. Hello, good afternoon. Good afternoon.

So, what do you got, man? I have a question. In 2 Samuel, talks about Saul's son, Jonathan, had a son named Methibosheth, if I'm saying that correctly. You know, it mentions him several times and everything and what David did for him.

But the next, you know, the next book in Chronicles where it's listing all the descendants and everything like that, when it gets to that line, you know, Saul's line, you know, it doesn't mention anything about it or that. Well, I was just kind of curious if you know anything about that, maybe. Well, he was crippled when he was younger. So, I don't know why, you know. So, I don't know why they didn't mention him. Maybe because of his condition, he was not able to participate in stuff.

And so, therefore, he was excluded from the events that go on. But I think your question's a good question. What you could do is you could email it to us. Say, hey, what about this? And see if we can get to it and research it, you know, and try and get some answers. Because, you know, sometimes it just says he'll die or sometimes it says, it won't say anything.

It just, they just don't. And then we have to kind of guess. Right. Yeah. Right. And it's Mephibosheth. Right. Yeah, however you say it, Mephibosheth.

Mephibosheth, yes. There's another name in there I love in the Bible, Mahelehelechazvaz, which I think is a really cool name. Just off the top of your head. In the line, you know, in the Chronicles, where it lists the line, there is, it does list a name as a son of Jonathan. And it's, I mean, I thought maybe there was just a, you know, an interpretation or something like that. I mean, it does list a descendant, but nowhere near the same spelling, so it's just one of those scary things. Yeah, it can be different spellings.

That can actually happen. But it's in 2 Samuel 4, 2 Samuel 9, I believe he's mentioned. So other than that, I'm not sure I'm gonna tell you. Okay.

Yeah. Okay, man. Well, I appreciate you taking the time. All right, buddy. Well, God bless. All right.

You too. Bye-bye. Okay. All right. I have nobody waiting. If you want to give me a call, 877-207-2276. All right, let's see. And if you want, you can email me too. Real easy to do. All you have to do is send an email to info at karm.org.

Info at karm.org. And then I can, like right now, I'm just looking at it. You put in a radio question or radio comment, and I get to them.

In fact, as I'm looking in our, looking in there, and okay, let's see, let's see, let's see. Okay, I don't see any more. Wait, wait, there's something for a radio right there.

What was that? Radio question, comment, good, there's another one. All right, yeah, we've got a few. I can get to some of those if we don't have any more callers. Oh, one's coming in. But let's see, we've got a radio call, and let's see. Tony says, in our fallen state, pre-salvation, is there a spark of divinity in us?

No. Since we're creating this image. No, we are not divine in any way, shape, or form. What we have is what's called the communicable attributes of God. The communicable attributes of God are those attributes that he has that we can also participate in. So he thinks we can think. He loves, we can love, et cetera. So the communicable attributes, it doesn't mean we're divine, because divinity is a quality that belongs to God alone.

It does not belong to anybody else. It is his quality, his nature, his essence. So when people say, you know, you're divine in your basic heart, then give me a break, that's a load of crud. Because divinity, by definition, is eternal, it is pure, and that's just not us. So when people say we have divinity in us, that's just a self-exaltation.

And it's sin as well, okay? Hey, let's get to Ray from Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome, you're on the air. Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. Hanging in there, a little melancholy, a touch of an obstreperousness, but I'm okay.

That's good. I had a question for you. I've started reading some systematic theologies. I read through most of Calvin's Institutes.

I thought it was phenomenal. And then I started reading Louis Berkhoff's systematic theology, and I wanted to know if there were any other ones that you recommend that maybe you've read through. You've probably read more Calvin Institutes than I have. I miss doing seminaries, required to read some of it. Berkhoff, his systematic theology is very good.

Hodge is also very good, and also Grudem is very good. So those are the three systematics that I'll go to for serious research. I wanna have some, just get the deep theology from the super experts.

So that's what I'll do. I don't even look at Calvin, I'm a Calvinist, but I don't even look at Calvin's Institutes. I know, and a lot of people don't know this though. Here's some trivia.

The Institutes of the Christian Religion, which he wrote when he was like 27 years old, is considered one of the absolutely most influential books outside the Bible of Western civilization. How about that? Because, yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, no, I'm sorry. I was just starting to cut you off. Yeah, it was phenomenal read. I read book one, two, and three. I stopped at book four. I started to look at some other things, but I've been reading some Puritans and some other guys because of that.

He was just, he was unbelievable. It really, really opened up the door for me for a lot of different other things to read. But yeah, if you've ever heard the other ones, I thought, oh, go ahead. We got a break, okay? So, hold on. We can talk more about that kind of stuff. Hold on, okay? Hey, folks, we'll be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the show, let's get back on with Ray from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Ray, man, you're back on the air. Okay, very good. So, I wanted to ask you this question also, just along those same lines. What commentaries do you recommend? What are your favorite commentaries?

Depends on what I'm doing. If I want a generic 20,000 foot view, I do a single volume commentary. I have three that I generally go to, do Bible commentaries, one of them that I have in my Logos Bible program, and I have some others, I just go to them. If I want more Greek analysis of something and how Greek relates to what's going on doctrinally, then I'll get the Lutheran commentaries from Lenski, and I'll do that.

Lenski, okay. Lenski, and he, and you know, but he'll, not everything, everything he says is not perfect, of course, I mean, like just with me, of course, but the guy really knows it's Greek, and he might say something like, the aorist passive indicative here means this, this is why this relates to that, and I love that kind of stuff. So I'll study him as well, and then I have a host of commentaries, because I'm on Logos, and over the years I've accumulated a lot of stuff, and so like what I'll do, I'll be in a commentary, and I just hit my right arrow, and it just takes me to the next commentary, whatever that one is, and then the next one, the next one, and the next one. So I have a lot of commentaries that are literally at my fingertips, and I can search them, so it's just incredible. So I don't read on books, paper books, books anymore. I do, I have one of those folding phones, as a matter of fact, you know, those Fold 5, and I read on Kindle on there.

So I do everything electronically now, because it's just so much faster, but anyway. Very cool, yeah, I appreciate it. I guess one last question, I have, I went and purchased the MacLennan Strong's biblical cyclopedias, and I wanted to know if you ever referenced those, or looked into those.

The Strong's I've used many times. The other one I don't, I'm just not familiar with, but there's new stuff that comes out all the time. But one of the things you can do that I think is really helpful, that commentaries don't do, and commentaries don't teach, and Bible places don't teach to do, and it's word studies, is, well actually there's some books that call it the word studies of, and you can do that. There are books that have done that, excuse me.

But what I'll do, for example, is the last one I started a few days ago, and I have to get off, I'm so busy. I put in the phrase, the law. You know, quote, the law, quote. And I'll find every reference where it occurs in the Bible. And then I wanna see, for example, how is God using it, and what is meant by it in a variety of things, because I need to deal with some heretical teachings from some of the people from Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholicism.

And they divide law up into this and that, so they can, it gets complicated. So I'll do studies like that. And I've discovered over the years that doing word studies is very enlightening, very enlightening, and it will definitely affect your theological perspective, absolutely.

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that. But my dad told me that he really loves word studies, and he says that that's the number one thing that has really affected his theology. And you know, we don't know any Greek, so we just look it up in the strongest concordance and make some connections there.

I'm sure there are more that you know. So I appreciate you taking my call. God bless. Hey man, God bless.

And tell your dad, way to go for word studies. I'm with him. They're like one of the most important things I've ever developed or learned to do that affect my theology. It's just tremendous.

They're good stuff. Thank you. All right, man. Well, God bless, buddy. Thank you so much. Have a great day. You too. We'll see ya. All right, now let's get over to Taylor from Ohio.

Taylor, welcome. You're on the air. Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Uh-huh. Cool. I just listened to you for the first time.

I'm working out of town. Your station came on. I've been listening to it. But I was just curious, now like the letter J actually wasn't in the alphabet till like way after Jesus was born. That's correct. And like the Hebrew or whatever.

Uh-huh. Is his, is the correct name Yahusha? Well, in Matthew 1 21, it says, "'She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, "'for he will save his people from their sins.'" The Greek word Jesus is literally, and I'm looking at it in Greek, Iesous, Iesous. So it's E-A, but literally in Greek, it's an I with a long A.

It's called an iota eta. So you say Ie, Ie, okay, Ie, and then sous, Iesous. That's how it's really kind of pronounced. There's slightly different variations on pronunciation like that from, but that's basically how his name is pronounced in the Greek, okay. Okay, and then what about his father? Is it Yahweh or Yahwah?

There's another one. So the tetragrammaton occurs 6,517 times in the Old Testament, and that's the name of God, I Am. So what we, we have a problem because we don't know what vowels to put in, because when the Jews would write in the Hebrew, they would do the consonants, not the vowels.

They added vowel points hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years later. So what we have in the name of God, Yahweh, we'll just call that for now, is the tetragrammaton, the tetra, four, the four letters, Yod, Heh, Vav, Heh. All right, so how do you pronounce it?

No one really knows. So is it Yoho, Yoweh, Vav, Yahy? So depending what vowels you put in there, but generically speaking, the most accepted form that I've seen is simply Yahweh. So, and that's good. It's good enough. We don't have to know the exact pronunciation.

It's not like that. And it's okay to have different names. You know, my name in Spanish is Mateo. Well, in English it's Matthew.

All right, so, well, I guess that's not my real name. When you say Mateo, if I'm, you know, when I'm talking to someone in Spanish, you know, and they say, you know, como estas Mateo? I say, hey, yeah, estoy bien, gracias. You know, I say, I'm fine. Cause they use it in my Spanish, they go, that's fine. No big deal.

I, okay. I just feel personally, and you know, I obviously don't know as much as you, but I feel like, you know, it's like other religions, you know, they, you know, worship their God. You know, it's like God calling our, you know, who we believe in, I feel like calling him God is almost like a generic name.

You know what I mean? It's like that, that covers so many other religions. So to just strictly call him God, you know, it's like, I feel like there is a more specific name that he deserves to be called in a way. But they call him God. Yes, but they call him God in the Old Testament hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. So it's okay to just say God, because if you're really a Christian, that's the one you're praying to, is the true and living God. His name is Elohim. Cause Jehovah is Elohim, 1 Kings 8, 60. So, you know, Jehovah is, or Yahweh is Elohim. That's what, you know, is God. So that's what it's saying. So it's okay to say God.

You know, when I'm praying, I say, you know, Lord God or Jesus or, you know, whatever, it's okay. All right? One more quick question if you've got the time.

Sure, go ahead. Um, what's your thoughts on a flat earth? Because... It's ridiculous. I mean, he, there's several Bible verses stating how he casts out the heavens and the new Jerusalem, when that comes down, isn't that like 1500 miles? 1600. Like 1500 miles, 1600, and the only way something square like that would fit would be on a flat earth. No, it's not true.

That's assuming 1600 miles is literal. It's symbolic in the book of Revelation. There's a very easy way to prove that flat earth idea is wrong. It's very simple. And I've talked to flat earthers about this. It's very, very easy, and it's the moon. Let me give you an illustration of something.

If you have a circle, a flat surface, three feet in diameter and let's just say you put a dome over it and the dome is roughly two feet from the height in the middle. All right, so now what you're gonna do is you're gonna put a ball up there and that ball represents the moon and it's in the upper center. That means people from the left side and the right side are gonna see different sides of the moon. That's necessary. That's how it works.

There's no way around this. But that's not what you see when you look up in the sky. You see the same face of the moon from every side of the earth. The reason you do that is because it's a quarter of a million miles away.

It's humongously different. And if you do vectors, if you take that model I just gave you and you put numbers around the equator of this little ball in the middle. You know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. So people on one side will see one, two, three, four.

The other ones will see six, seven, eight, nine, for example. They're not gonna see the other side. How can you then see all the numbers? If you raise that thing up, you know, 100 feet, maybe then you could see it.

See the whole side because of the angle. Well this is, that's how the moon is. It just refutes the idea of a flat earth and a canopy over it, a little dome thing. It's just ludicrous. The flat earth thing is ludicrous. Bible is, personally, I believe in it personally.

Well you shouldn't. Because the Bible does not state that the earth is flat. It uses metaphor. See, what I do with flat earthers, I'll say, well do you believe the earth has four corners? If they say yes, I say, well then why does the Bible say the circle of the earth?

If they say the Bible teaches the earth is circle here, I say, well then why don't you believe the four corners? Because it speaks of both of them. It's metaphor.

That's all that's going on. So what about the, there's also a verse about the foundations shall never be moved and you know, how would that work on a globe, you know, theory that is spinning and flying through space. It's metaphor.

Look, think about this. The earth is on a foundation. Let's take the flat earth model. It's on a foundation. Good, what foundation? Is it pillars? Is it really pillars holding up a flat disc? And what are the pillars being sustained on? Are they floating in space?

What are the pillars on and what's that on and what's that on and what's that on and how far do you go? Because it makes no logical sense to say there's pillars, literal pillars, because what are they resting on? And where does gravity come from? Because in the model of, Gravity. Yeah, that's what they say. There's no such thing as gravity. Well, in the order, which is dumb, because in order to say there's no such thing as gravity or to say that there has to be a means by which gravity can be, so to speak, fake, you have to have an acceleration.

So that we have, you know. Buoyancy. What's that? Buoyancy and density.

No, no, no, no, no. That doesn't work. Look, I've taken physics.

Buoyancy and density have no bearing on gravity. It's ridiculous. Okay, people who talk like that, I'm sorry, but it just irritates me because they just don't know what they're talking about. They don't.

It doesn't work like that. I respect what you have to say, but my buddy told me he thought the world was flat and I told him he was an idiot and he's like, look into it. And I was like, all right.

And I looked into it and I'm like, man, you know, this makes more and more sense. I believe, you know, the sun and the moon is God created it as like a clock. And I don't believe in space. Okay, NASA and Hebrews. Hold on, hold on, hold on.

We're almost out of time here. I just want to tell you, I've looked into it too. And the more I look into it, the more the flat earth position is falsified. Okay, and you can call that tomorrow. We could talk more about it. Then there's a parallax effect. There's all kinds of things, but the moon thing proves the little dome theory is false. It proves it, okay.

And when I talk about it with people, they just ignore it because it doesn't fit their model and they can't do anything with it. So, hey man, call back tomorrow and we can talk about it more slowly, okay. What's the name of your show? I didn't, what's the name of your show? I didn't catch it. Matt Slick Live. What is it?

It's Matt Slick Live. It's my real name. Okay, buddy, we've got to go. We're out of here. Hey folks, God bless everybody. Talk to you tomorrow. Another program powered by the Truth Network.