MS Top 6 Season 4 #4

This is the Truth Network. Do you use specific study Bible and or do you recommend one? No, I don't use a specific study Bible.

I just use the NASB in English. I'll look at the Greek and the Hebrew. And occasionally I will go to commentaries that I trust and look through them and see if I can glean anything new or something I hadn't thought of when I do stuff. Like for example today I released an article on Matthew 5-8. Does it contradict 1 Timothy 6-16?

The former verse says the pure in heart will see God and the latter verse says the fathers cannot be seen. So how do we reconcile that? And so I wrote an article on that and I came up with some answers and some stuff and then went and checked a commentary to see if there's anything new in there. And I actually got one of the ideas was oh that's that's right it's a good point. I forget which one it was. And so just included it. You know when that's what they're for the commentaries are to teach us or to help us.

Number five. Is it a stand for a Christian to invest in a stock market or crypto currency? No, it's not. The Bible talks about having different sources of income. I forgot.

I've got an article on that I think someplace. I don't have a problem with crypto or stocks as long as you're not using it in a gambling kind of a way. If you're trying to make money in order to provide for your family etc.

that's fine. So you got to be careful with it. Like any investment you make. So investments are okay. There's different kinds of investments.

I know a good Christian friend and he does the stock market and he knows it really well. And he's made money out of it. Now he's not doing it as the thing and he's all living over it and that's all his life is about.

No. He just makes choices and he waits a year or two and he's he's watches how they're doing and gradually he's making money. Not a whole bunch but he's doing it and is able to pay a couple of things off and things like this because of it.

But he's lost money too. And so it's like putting money in the bank. The way the inflation rate is going. Here's a question. The inflation rate is going if you put a thousand dollars in the bank in a year it's equivalent to like nine hundred and fifty dollars.

That kind of a thing. So is it smarter to put money into silver for example or gold where it'll stay constant. So which one is better.

Well depends on what your motive is and what your goals are. So this is a tough one to answer. Number four. You were talking to Ryan about epistemology and determining truth.

Yeah. And he made a comment about empiricism where he said we can't even read the Bible without using our senses and you kind of just dismissed it as if it's not a problem for what you were saying because we do need to use our empirical senses to determine truth. And if we didn't have them we couldn't even read the Bible. The only way we can know the Bible is through our senses. OK. Is empiricism the ultimate means by which you gain truth through your senses. It's one of the means by which we determine truth.

Notice I didn't ask that. Is it the means by which we gain ultimate truth. Well you're phrasing it in a way that can't be properly answered. It is a way.

Yes it can be properly answered. So let me ask you a question. I don't know. Are you an atheist or what or not. I just I don't remember.

What are you. I'm a Christian. Did Jesus rise from the dead. Yes. Did Jesus rise from the dead. OK. I believe so.

How do you know he rose from the dead. That's what it's recorded. OK. And you read it. So do you believe it based on what your eyes tell you on written words.

Well yeah the only way the only way I was able to read it was by seeing the words or hearing someone else say it. So OK. Sense perception was a necessary part of that process. So does God open your heart to believe the truth or do you do it of your own sinfully enslaved free will. I believe I accept truth. Truth is realized when it conforms with reality. So it's called the correspondence theory of truth and that's that's very secular. So you don't know what corresponds to reality because you don't know all reality. You don't know what the correspondence relationship would be.

Number three. Well do you think God created us in a way where we couldn't determine the reality around us. Tell me what the nature do you think he gave us.

Do you think he gave us. You asked me a question. If you ask me a question I start to answer. Don't start up with another question.

You call you ask questions. I'll start to answer it. Then you ignore what I'm saying when it's something else.

Come on. I'm trying to teach you something that your senses are not the ultimate source of knowledge. God is. And you say you read the Bible and that's how you know that Jesus broke from the dead. The knowledge and the belief of that is given to you by God. He opens your heart and mind to believe the gospel. That's what happens at 1614. God opened Lydia's mind to believe the truth to believe the words that were spoken.

Number two. To me that means that revelation is completely unnecessary because God could just put the truth into our hearts without any necessity of evangelism or anything like that. You're not listening. You're not thinking.

You're reacting. When I ask you a specific question is God what's the ultimate source of truth is it empiricism. Empiricism. You said yes how you determine truth.

Well there's problems with this. If empiricism is how you determine truth then you're using empiricism to validate empiricism. You're assuming empiricism's validity in order to say it's true.

And if you say well it's the senses that I'm looking at how do your senses are reflecting actuality properly. Third, God's the one who opens the mind to believe the scriptures. You can go to Luke 24 45 you go to Acts 16 14.

I don't believe that. I don't believe God is the one who opens our minds to the scripture. I think we do it when we in our own capacity recognize it corresponds to what's true or real. And so when it says that Jesus opened their minds to understand scripture Luke 24 45 did Jesus open their minds to understand scripture. Oh yes but there's probably multiple ways in which that could be understood.

Excuse me. You said you don't believe God does that. I just showed you the scripture where Jesus is God in flesh did that very thing. So were you incorrect in your statement. Well we have to understand what does it mean that he opened their minds.

He could mean when he did them in a way that excuse me. I asked you does God open the mind. You said no. You didn't ask for definitions on that. I didn't read you the scripture where it says the exact opposite of what you said. And then when I asked you to agree with the scriptures then what you do is it wasn't me open the mind. If that's what your concern was why didn't you ask that when the questioning began.

You didn't. So why is it you're not conforming yourself to reality. You like the correspondence theory of reality. You like the idea that your senses you are the ones who determines truth by your ability to see what's real. If you can read Luke 24 45 and your senses tell you that the Bible says he opened their mind understand scriptures.

Then did Jesus open their mind understand scripture. Let's see if you're consistent. Did he do that. Yes. Okay. So then you were wrong in your first assessment. You said God does not do that.

I've shown you now he does. You tell him it's the same thing you tell everybody is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Romans 3 23 and that they should not put their all their hope and trust in their finances or their possessions because they can't take them with them when they die. And everybody's going to die.

And so I just tell people I said I tell them I say look I don't care how rich you are or how poor you are. I said if you put your trust in your possessions then you're going to face God naked because your possessions are going to stay here. You're going to face him and only his mercy his grace lets you continue to breathe because you have offended him so much every day you offend him by denying him by doing things for your own interest by not being godly by lying and cheating and stealing and coveting and all the things that we do throughout our lives. And God is merciful letting you breathe. When his mercy ceases you go to face him. You'll face him alone. You're going to face him with Christ. So now's the time of salvation because judgment's coming. I hope you had the time of your life. It's okay now.

Goodbye my friend. We hope you've enjoyed this episode of Matt Slick's Top 6. For more on Matt and his live syndicated call-in radio show, go to TruthNetwork.com. Got a question? Matt Slick has your answer. This is the Truth Network.