Episode 197

Can the bible be trusted? After all, who has ever seen a donkey talk, or a sea split down the middle, or or a curse-induced drought? Our scientific knowledge has multiplied to the point that the story of the sun standing still in the sky is just fantastic, right? Or could it be that these things really did happen, and the bible is completely trustworthy and its author’s claims should be taken to heart? On this episode of the Removing Barrier podcast, we sit down with Dr. Phil Stringer, vice president of the King James Bible Research Council, speaker, and author of several books, including The History of the English Bible, Majestic Legacy, and The Real Story of King James. What are the reasons that the bible can be trusted? What are the arguments that bible critics have against is veracity? How can we as Christians strengthen our faith in God’s word and effectively explain to the world why the bible can be trusted? Dr. Stringer answers these questions and much more, so join us on this episode to hear more about the book of all books: The Bible.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

But my own honest belief, and I’m a person who deals with the apologetic side, this kind of thing all the time, there are more people that have emotional barriers than have intellectual barriers to accepting the gospel because our society is so dysfunctional.

[Jay]

Thank you for tuning in to the Removing Barriers podcast. I’m Jay and I’m MCG. And we’re attempting to remove barriers so we can all have a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

This is episode 197 of the Movement Barrels Podcast. And in this episode. We will be discussing whether the Bible is truth or fiction. And joining us in this episode is the Vice President of the King James Bible Research Council. He’s an author and a lecturer and holds, among others, a Doctor of Philosophy degree in English Bible.

[Jay]

Hi, this is Jay. MCG and I would like for you to help us remove barriers by going to removingbarriers.net and subscribing to receive all things, removing barriers. If you’d like to take your efforts a bit further and help us keep the mics on, consider donating at removingbarriers.net/donate, removing barriers. A clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

Dr. Phil Stringer It is indeed a pleasure. Welcome to the Removing Barriers podcast.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for what you’re doing. I love your subtitle. A clear view of the cross. That is what it all comes down to, no matter how religious we get or how involved we get. We have to clearly see what Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. So thank you for what you’re doing.

[MCG]

Yeah, just to give you a background on that, it was many years ago out Soul winning. Someone asked me a question about I don’t remember exactly what they asked me about, but I found myself having to use. Use some apologetics to defend the faith and to try to show the faith to them. So I started wondering, you know, is apologetic arguments required for salvation? Is it necessary to know some apologetics for someone? And and the answer I came up to was no, you don’t necessarily need it, but as one guy said, it does remove obstacles. So that unsafe person can have a clear view of the cross, so we cannot borrow it from that person, like removing barriers, a clear view of the cross. So that’s why we came in.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And I would say to that we have to meet people where they are. If a person is ready to hear the gospel, give them the gospel, forget everything else. There’s an awful lot of people that are not yet ready.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

To hear the. Gospel. Yeah. And they have barriers, and those barriers will be dramatically different from person to person to person.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And we’ve got to do everything we can do to remove barriers to be sensitive to what individuals need and to address the things in front of them, our culture. Tries to put many, many barriers in front of. People.

[MCG]

Yep, so true.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

That would keep them from the cross. And so I’m assuming you’re broadcast, you’re trying to deal with those barriers to get put in front of people. A lot. Yeah. Some people have their own personal emotional barriers, and you just have to deal with them very distinctly on an individual basis. But there’s surely some barriers that stand in front of a lot of people. Our culture.

[MCG]

Yep, definitely. All right, let’s jump into it. Let’s start by just asking, what is the Bible? We know it’s a book, but what is the Bible?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

God made human beings so that we think in terms of words. Animals think in terms of sensations. They have ability to think for around them. We can pick that out very quickly, but human beings are dramatically different and some people say the difference in human being is the opposable thumb well. I would say the greatest difference to a human being an animal is it a human being thinks in terms of words. And the God that made us, beings of words. You look around the world anytime there was a group of people together, they would form a language using words they would attach sounds to. Ideas and create words. Communicating words. The God that created us as people of words. People who think in terms of words, has given the words of His Holiness to us so that we could understand what our own human nature could never figure out on our own. And we could have revelation. From God, and again, exactly the issue of the cross man could never come up with a plan of salvation like that. You can study thousands of religions and never find anything that resembles the gospel.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

We have to have the words of God to make clear to us what his gospel is, otherwise we. Could search forever. Like people lost in the wilderness who have no chance of ever finding rescue or finding hope. And so the Bible is God’s words given to man.

[Jay]

Amen. How did we get the Bible? It seems that many people think that it’s just a book written by man. It’s no different from. Insert ancient text here. How did we get our Bible?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Over 2000 years, God gave people his word and one at a time he would raise up a prophet. Prophets would be inspired, they could verbally give people God’s word which dealt with the need for their generation. But over the course of that time, God had certain people. Write down his words. And 66, you know, books collected and you have all these different authors and you see what God did. But these are books that stand out as being unique. I personally believe the words of scripture were literally dictated by God to man. That is not just a process of God helping men write them. But he gave them to them and I think you see that in Scripture. Men wrote things they did not understand. They wrote things they did not practice. They wrote things I suspect they did not want to write, Solomon writes 3 chapters about how utterly foolish a man was, who allowed himself to be misled by sensual women. Well, in the history of the world, Solomon probably stands out as the biggest example of the foolishness that he wrote about.

[Jay]

Hmm.

[MCG]

Hmm. Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I’m not sure Solomon wanted to write that, but when the person was inspired, I believe God came over them. They were writing God’s words, you know, Moses wrote that he was the meekest man on the face. To the earth, which is something a meek man does not write, adds words. And you see that over and over again. And there was an act of inspiration where God supernaturally controlled what a person wrote, and so that it communicated his words and went far beyond the wisdom that men possessed, or that they could come up with on their own.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Something supernatural happened in the production of those words, and in those books.

[MCG]

Yeah, definitely. In what way is the Bible true or? Or is the Bible true? I guess is the question.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Yeah, absolutely. And that is a a big question because a lot of people say it’s kind of true or somewhat true or you have some good ideas and even some ideas. Maybe that came from God, but it’s beyond that again. God communicated with us in words. They’re absolutely, totally, completely true there.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Many times we don’t understand them and there may be times that we have. Uh, so man, I’ve got to find out, and I don’t know yet what the meaning of this passage of this verse is. There may be times when people say I I figured it out. This isn’t true, but my pastor puts a lot of interest in Bible archaeology, and he made statements several times. He said you think you found an error, something that contradicts the Bible. Keep digging, he said. You’ll eventually find the answer to that and find the information that God wants you to have, which will absolutely demonstrate that the scripture was true. And over the centuries people said, oh, we found this error. We found that error. You get a little bit more information, you find out it was. In an error, in what sense is it true historically, scientifically, socially, in spiritually? It’s true in every possible sense as a unique book that doesn’t resemble anything that man can produce.

[MCG]

Yeah, dig a little bit deeper, give us maybe an example historically, how is it true scientifically? How is it true and the others that you mentioned?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Scientifically, the Bible tells us that the earth is a. Or for a long time, the scientific world would have absolutely said that was untrue, that that was not responsible, that the earth was flat, and that was just a common belief. But we’re told in scripture the Earth is a circle. Hey, guess what? Eventually folks figure that out. And today, all the traffic that. With airplanes flying around, the world is based on that truth. That’s example in that sense, historically, Bible talks about the people called the Hittites and for long. Historians said there were no such group that was mythological. We have the tendency to believe that the things we know are all that there is to know, but today there’s abundant historical evidence of the Hittites. They clearly were true. There was a well developed civilization that there’s no one would question their existence today.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And pick any area you want to go into. You will find again and again men have come to some conclusion that boy we have found the error but as time goes on it’ll be obvious they didn’t.

[MCG]

But the critic will say Doctor Spring. The Bible talks about the man being swallowed by a giant fish. You know, you talk about people that didn’t have any form of technology building a big boat and surviving the flood. He talks about the Sun standing still. Stuff that you will say that only happened in fairy tales.

[Jay]

Right. Donkeys talking. Yeah, yeah.

[MCG]

Right. You’re telling us that these things are true.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, first of all, I think the donkey talking is another illustration. Inspiration being God’s words. They were clearly not the. Words of the. Donkey. You know the donkey sort of makes that.

[Jay]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Point is that these weren’t his words. Pretty obvious. People talk about these things, about the Earth standing still, the sun and so forth. Once you have acknowledged that there is a God that created the universe, none of these things are a big. Deal.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Once you’ve accepted that premise, and if you haven’t accepted that premise, then you have to ask where creation. Came from, but once you’ve accepted that premise that there is a God. God is the creator of the universe, then the rest of those things follow simply as things that any God that could create a universe could do.

[Jay]

Right. You mentioned earlier people that would say they found errors in the Bible and they should keep digging. Let’s talk about those because the world is replete with people, both common man and very learned. Well respected men that throw shade on the Bible and make arguments that it’s all fiction and it’s all man made and it’s no different from any other book. What are some of those arguments that those people put forward that they would say? Ohh. See, this is the reason why the Bible can’t be trusted. This is the reason why the Bible is fiction. What are some of those arguments that those people make?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, again, man’s pride makes him assume that we know everything and there’s there can’t be any information beyond what we know. We’re the ultimate pinnacle of evolution and and we have arrived and we know everything and so they will argue basically all their arguments are based on this one idea. What it say in the Bible violate nature and the natural order of things. Everything about the dead can’t come alive again. Or you want to talk about the Jonah and they get all worked up because there’s a great fish, swallowed him. The New Testament says it was a whale. We know there are whales that have swallowed human beings. We don’t know of any fish that have swallowed human beings. But they forget the terms whale and fish were defined in the way we use them today. In the 1700s, long ago fish referred to that which existed and lived in the water. So we’re trying to take a modern definition of fish.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And put it on the Book of Genesis. And we do know that giant fish that swallowed Jonah was a whale. And we do know of cases where people have swallowed whale people swallowed whales. Now I’m doing whales. I swallowed people. And it’s easy to get that one twisted around that we know of cases that are recorded, cases of people who’ve been swallowed. There are whales that have.

[Jay]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

The throat capacity to do that, so that’s not really defying science and folks get all worked up because the Old Testament calls that creature great fish and that word fish at that time would have referred to that which existed in the sea. Whales exist. In the sea, whales are larger than the average fish, so great fish. Was an accurate description. That is different than the way we started using the words in 1700, but this violates the laws of nature. This violates the laws of nature. This violates the laws of nature. Is there a God that created nature? Is there a God that rules over nature? Is there God that is bigger than nature? All those other arguments are meaningless. It all comes down to an argument. Is there a creed or God? Once you’ve accepted there’s a creator God, none of the rest of this is a big deal. And if you wanted to challenge the idea of the creator God, then you’re left in a hopeless challenge that becomes the debacle when people try to explain it about how did the universe get here? Either have to believe in a God that is greater than the universe, or an impersonal universe that’s greater than reality and greater than any scientific principles. Known today, but you cannot come up with a satisfactory explanation for how the world. Not here. And then say, well, the laws of nature. Just explain everything, because they clearly don’t.

[MCG]

Right, either eternal matter or eternal God. One or the other.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Of.

[MCG]

Yeah, I don’t know if you’re following the news lately, but in Chile, I think it’s punting arenas. What do you say?

[Jay]

Punta Arenas is that OK?

[MCG]

Ponte arenas. There was this guy that was on, I think he was on. I want to say kayak, but he was under a small boat, very small boat and a whale actually swallowed him, spit him back out and this happened recently.

[Jay]

And just recently there was a tick I don’t remember if it was a TikTok video or YouTube. Short of two women that were, I think they were kayaking. That’s the one where you’re sitting in the boat and you have.

[MCG]

I think we’re talking about the same one this is.

[Jay]

The same one. These are women, though not a men. These are two women. The whales swallowed one of the women, like kayak and all.

[MCG]

Ohh OK.

[Jay]

And actually spit her out too. So there.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Are numerous stories throughout world history of people that were swallowed by whales. And some of whom survived that experience. Others didn’t. When people tried to pursue the whales, dead bodies have been found, but both dead and living bodies have been brought out of whales. And you mentioned a couple recently. Every few years, you have another story to add to this it really comes back to folks. We’re talk about removing berries. There’s a lot of the berries are simply I don’t wanna hear that. You know, I just this is how I have been sure.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And this is how I have felt that I don’t have to be a challenge by God and so don’t tell me what I don’t want to hear.

[MCG]

Right, right. All right, let me pick your brain on this though, because my argument is that it wasn’t a whale. It was a Montessori.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

OK.

[MCG]

Possibility not possible.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

The Bible calls it a whale. I’ll just stick with the biblical terminology.

[MCG]

Well, my argument has been that, you know, in my opinion, it could have been translated a giant, you know, sea creature and Montessori’s kind of fit.

[Jay]

MHM.

[MCG]

The bill, OK.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Coin your own term. Everybody else does it. So you guess you have some too.

[MCG]

Yeah, definitely.

[Jay]

I was going to tack on to that you mentioned earlier. How we need to meet people where they are and some people aren’t actually ready to hear the gospel. And now we’re talking about the possibility of a whale swallowing a person and they just don’t want to hear that. So it seems like when we’re talking to people about how the Bible is true and why they should turn to faith and turn to. Priced one of the barriers that we have to contend with is that human pride that you were referencing earlier because it seems to me that if you look at just the sheer size of a whale, it’s the largest animal on the planet. It shouldn’t require two brain cells to rub together to realize, hey, that thing could probably swallow a person, right? But if we’re so proud and we dig our feet in because we don’t want there to be a creator God. Because we don’t want to be told what to do, we don’t want to be told how to live our lives. We don’t want to be told that we’re sinners. Well, we could see how. We could voluntarily put those blinders on, harden our hearts and in turn be hardened as well, which is a very scary thought, a very scary position to be in.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

People want to have their argument, their cliche, their points. That means they don’t have to face any of this. And I have a pastor friend who, before he was safe, he got tired of people giving gospel tracks to him.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

So he decided he was going to turn the table. He was going to come up with one fact that absolutely refuted the Bible that no one could answer and to make sure no one could answer it, he would come up with his arguments and then he would go check and see. Is anybody ever written about this? Has anybody ever addressed this because he wanted to have a track to give back to the Christians? They say this disproves. Everything and he spent some time on. That, and it grabbed him when he found out he could not find a fact that refuted the Bible that no one could deal with, or that no one had answered. That ended the discussion eventually led to his being opened to the idea of the existence of God. He did not get saved at that point. He got saved later, when somebody handled him, a God’s simple.

[MCG]

OK.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Plan of Salvation track and after they realized I don’t have any answers, then somebody gave them the answer.

[MCG]

And let it bring that up because one of their hits on the Bible. Who is God commanding the children of Israel to totally wipe out many people group. Think about for someone with all and many other places where the Bible completely wipe them out and a lot of unsick folks that especially 80s would look at them and say, hey, how can this be moral? How can this be a loving God? How can this be? Blah blah blah. Yet we are saying totally wipe out everybody, including children, to which you say.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, they’ll be really. This is the single toughest argument for me to deal with. I admit. In my flesh I shrink from the thought of this. And it it involves recognizing that there’s someone who understands better than I do, and more than I do, there are things you have to answer into this. War is a horrible, horrible thing, and many times a war is 1 only temporarily. And the survivors come back for more. Or you see watch what’s happening in Palestine, right? Now, yeah.

[Jay]

Sir. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And there was an understanding on God’s part of much bigger issues than I am capable of looking at. But I say with some sympathy to. Well, that is the single issue. Having dealt with these things through 52 years of ministry, that is the single one that is most. I’m not gonna say hard for me to deal with because I trust God understands all this and I recognize that I don’t. But I would say it’s the most painful one for me to deal with. It touches our hearts. And that idea, the reality, is that difficult and that painful. But one of the things I’ve tried to say over and over again dealing with this kind of things is that pain is the price tag of free will. And because of man’s sin, situations are. Needed that demand. Horrible, horrible things. And you see in in any successful war effort, innocent victims get caught up in the carnage. You cannot win a war and save a society without innocent victims being caught up in the carnage. And one of the things that’s happened our own day and age, we now can record that.

[MCG]

Alright.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Lives as it’s happening, and the sight of it is just horrifying to us, as indeed it should be. So I understand when people say that tears at their heart that tears at my heart more than any argument that I have heard in 52 years of dealing with these things, and yet I have to know and understand.

[MCG]

Alright.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

We live in a real world, a real world that God understands, where pain is the price tag of free will and they’re issues that are bigger than my comprehension. And I know enough about God and enough about God and his revelation in the Bible. I know enough about God, what I’ve seen him do in the lives of people, to trust him with the answers to those. Situations where the understanding requires something bigger than me.

[Jay]

Yeah, definitely. What can you say to both our audience and people who? Would have reservations questions about the actual words of the Bible. Earlier you said that you believe that God dictated even the words that the prophets and the men who exactly wrote the Bible. God dictated what they would actually write. The actual words well, languages change over time. And most of the world was illiterate at that time. How do we know that the words that God gave these men are the same words that we have in our Bible today?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And that is, of course, a question that you hear constantly never ending. What I would say to you when the scripture was given. You begin to have multiplication or copies of it. There’s not just one here, one there, or one there. And what happened? How could this one book have been to this book, to this book, this book we’re talking, not thousands, millions. Of copies of Scripture going from one generation to another, generation to another generation which made every generation the checkers, if you will, you could look back and see what the generation right before you had and the next generation would be able to see. That you. Had. And the questions about transmission scripture are not nearly as big as you would think as you went from century to century to century. There are always people who tried to corrupt scripture every generation and not just in New Testament area. You go back Jeremiah 23, Jeremiah. Is explaining that the prophets in Jerusalem have corrupted the scripture. But it was also clear there were people. Then there were people in Paul’s time, as he warned in 2nd Corinthians 2, about those who interrupt the Bible. You read among Christian leaders in every generation in every century that it was obvious to them when somebody tried to corrupt the Bible because there were so many. Copies of the clear, perfect word of God available that you could. Tell when someone tried to corrupt it and to come up with something different 1st century or not right after 1st century, maybe 2nd century. Marcion decided there were certain parts of the Bible he did not like. He produced a Bible that was a New Testament that was 2/3 of our present New Testament. Now almost every Christian writer. Of the day. Is pointing out how long this is, how corrupt this is. Everybody, virtually everybody, when they saw corruption recognize. And in the Old Testament, the scripture was kept by the priests. The priests were responsible for transmitting it from one generation to another, and they were in charge of it. Well, in a New Testament era, every believer is a priest, and I believe it’s the priesthood in general that has kept the scripture in front of people just for example. When Martin Luther had questions about the book of James, the people of Lutheran Church would not accept. Even the suggestion that we might not want to have the book of James in. The. New Testament and again and again when folks would have said, well first John 57, I don’t think that belongs, it’s been the priest or the believers who demanded it. They insisted on it. And folks, when John Wesley thought perhaps about leaving first John 57 out of the work that he did.

[MCG]

Hmm. All right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

He couldn’t get the Methodist to think about it, and he eventually studied. It, came to the conclusion it belonged in the Bible, but I believe it is, and I’m the same thing today. If it was up to the scholars and, you know, 98% of our. Areas the King James Bible would have gone out of print 2. 100 years ago.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Who is it? Keeps it in print. The people who demand it, and I believe God has used New Testament priests to preserve his word just like he. Used Old Testament priests.

[MCG]

Yeah. What are the arguments behind of? First John 57, I’ve heard of also John 1, you know, especially when you come to drove a witness, they rely heavily on that article, a God versus God, yeah…The.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Yeah, the arguments are really very different in John chapter one that Joe was witnesses just made it say what they wanted it to say. There was never any widespread argument for changing that. Before Joe’s witnesses and then the modern. First, John 57 is a different discussion. I have a book on all this called unbroken, and I have a chapter. On this I’ve. Spoken on it often. I’m on my waiting Nebraska to do a King James Bible conference and probably Tuesday night I’ll address first John 57, but the. Argument, they say, well, you look at the Greek manuscripts in the testament. There’s an awful lot of Greek manuscripts in New Testament that don’t have first John 57. It’s not there.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Depending on how some say there’s none, others say there’s one, others say they’re like 6. John Gill listed 16 back in the 1600s. But it is a fact. There’s a lot of Greek manuscripts that don’t have first John 57. However, the majority of churches before the modern era use Latin, and there’s over 20,000 of these old manuscripts that all have first John.

[Jay]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And Jerome, who was a major figure in them transmission of the Latin Bible, actually addressed this back in the early 4 hundreds. He wrote about this. And he said the reason what they called the johannan comma, they didn’t have the first numberings of our day was. The Johannan comma was not in a lot of the Greek Bibles is because the Greek churches and believe in the Trinity since they cut it. But the reason it was in the Latin Bible is because the Latin Church is using Latin. Did believe in the Trinity? They had no reason to cut it out, but in Jerome’s mind, and he’s riding that far back in Jerome’s mind, it was in the original and in. Simply corruption. Why there’s so many of these manuscripts? Don’t have it.

[MCG]

Hmm, that’s interesting. I’m going to show some more to you because this is very intriguing to me. The argument also that they make about, I think it’s match up to 16. I think they said that chapter should not be there. Then.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Yeah, Mark chapter 16. Yeah, that was actually a very critical thing for me. I’ve been preaching 52 years, 1st, 10 years. I did not take the position that I do now. And I had questions about the the folks would say, well, you should operate off that arcanus cesenatico cus. These two particular manuscripts can correct all the others. They’re the oldest. They’re the best.

[MCG]

Yes. Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And I didn’t know what to believe. I don’t think I ever really believed that. But I had questions and didn’t have answers and I’ve been a preacher for about 10 years and I was challenged to study this and I’ve been wondering about Mark 16 since I was a teenager, so I decided I’m going to get a handle on this. I’ve got to know because when you get to Mark 16 and you get the.

[MCG]

Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Last. 12 verses and you reading a Scofield reference Bible. There’s a note. And it says in that note that these verses aren’t in the two oldest and best manuscripts, but they’re in many others. So I’m saying, huh?

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Is it in or is it? No, this is not a little deal, right? The Bible tells us in genomics, in proverbs and revelation, not to remove a word, not to add a word. Now you get to Mark 16. Either somebody’s trying to remove 12 verses or somebody sticking in 12 verses that don’t belong.

[MCG]

Right. Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

This is not a little deal.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And so this is the one I looked at. I said I have to get an answer to this. I’ve got. No. And so I took a year everything I could find on this debate over March 16, I went after I went to the real book room at Christian Theological Seminary Library. They’re very gracious to me. I ordered books, various books. So I’ve got to know. And when I got to the end of it, boy, this March 16 problem was not as. Big as what I thought. For example, this is the note they could have made in the 600 oldest copies of the. Book of mark. The long endings found in 598. It’s only those two that it’s not in and one of those leaves a blank space there as if no copyist was not sure whether there should be something else they’re not. It’s a blank space big enough to put those verses in. And then you go to the Latin.

[Jay]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Bible, which again was far more common. There’s far more copies of it. There were far more churches using it. All the old Latin manuscripts, with the exception of one, have the long ending to me. And then you find that in the early languages, the Bible translated into the Peshitta, the Ethiopian Bible, and in some of these that you have early translations, they all have the long ending to the bookmark and if you take that ending out, if you were to remove those verses, the ending of the book. Park is, and they were all afraid what a blessing that is. You know, that was encouraging. So I looked at all the evidence is on the side of the long ending. So why is there such a control?

[MCG]

Umm. Definitely.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Mercy. And I finally got the answer when I came to a book by fellow named James Bentley, a modernist someone who doesn’t believe the Bible is inspired, doesn’t believe in the deity of Christ, doesn’t believe in the. Resurrection doesn’t believe in Trinity. And he tells the story of how one of those. Two manuscripts was. Found at the sandy attic as an Atticus and he tells the story behind it and he said this is the most important find ever because he says it gives the modernist a book of the. Testament said. Then have the resurrection. So now we can have a. Book of our own.

[Jay]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I said what a? Motive. Yeah.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And if I had as a teenager, I’m reading the note, the Scofield reference Bible, it’s not in the two oldest and best, but it’s in many others. I’ll have was a question. If I had read of the 600 oldest manuscripts, it’s in 500. 28 I don’t think it would have bothered me at all.

[Jay]

You’ve saved yourself a whole year of.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Yeah, it’s in all the Latin and it’s in all the early translations and the book makes no sense whatsoever. If you take those out, I don’t think it would have been a big question. And then I realized it didn’t just hit me about Mark 16. It’s like this is the best they got. They don’t have an argument better.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

In this there are a lot of people who are desperate not to have an authoritative Bible.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

So desperate they will grab on to anything that protects them from having to believe there’s a Bible that has absolute authority that can tell me when I’m wrong.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And once I understood that an awful lot of things. For me just fell into place and so 42 years ago, said what I’m going to do, I said. King James Bible God has used to. And in the next fashion. So I’m going to trust the Bible. He has used. That doesn’t mean I’m close to looking at whatever needs to be looked at, but I’m going to give the King James Bible the benefit of the doubt as millions of English speaking Christians have before me. And I’m going to go with, give it the benefit of the doubt. You’re going to have to come prove something to me.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Not just suggest or maybe or you’re gonna have to offer me some absolute proof. When I said things like that over 42 years. Endlessly. People have gotten. What about this? What about this? What about this? And it’s really an everyday experience in my life.

[MCG]

Pretty much what we are doing now.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Yeah, like you’re doing now and being on the Internet is generated daily. Questions I’ve dealt with two before had a chance to talk with you folks, and I’ve never. Sometimes I have to spend a little time looking up something or studying something, but most of them can be answered in 5 minutes. Research nothing in 42 years has made me question.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

My faith in the word of God and my faith in the King James Bible in English and. The thing that has made me. More convinced than anything is how desperate people get to find some way to escape it. It’s like they will grab onto anything, no matter how easily refuted, no matter. Foolish.

[Jay]

Ohh well well. Doctor Stringer, they say what you call desperate. They call being thorough and objective and level headed and you sound like you’re just defending the Bible. How can we trust that you’re not possessed by your ideology that the Bible is true? They say, what would you answer to those people that would say that?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I know that might not be a bad argument that we’re. Both desperate. I am desperate to believe that God kept his promises in revealing his word to us, and they’re desperate not to believe it, so I’ll accept that if they want to put me.

[Jay]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

In that category.

[Jay]

I think that one of the blessings and 2020 was definitely a very difficult I’m not downplaying all of the. The fear and death and everything that happened in 2020, but one of the great things that happened in 2020 and a few years before that even, is how we’re beginning to see sort of like the peeling of an onion. All of these things that we thought were. Trustworthy all of these so-called institutions that the I could just speak for America. I don’t know about other countries. We had so much confidence in them that they wouldn’t lie to us that. Wouldn’t lead us astray, and they began to show themselves for what they really are for the God hating Bible, supplanting organizations that they really are. And it’s been very encouraging to see Christians stand up and defend the Bible, defend the scriptures, defend what thus saith the Lord, because there is a A. Dearth. If I could use that word of knowledge of the word of God. And so I think it’s wonderful that there are people like yourself and like many others who are willing to stand up and defend the word say, hey, here’s what actually says. Here are the reasons why it’s true. Here are the reasons why we can trust it. Here’s the history behind it. Here’s ABC XYZ. And that information is not lost, and that even here today we could sit down and talk about it and really go through and find all of the actual reasons, solid reasons why the Bible is trustworthy.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

You really hit on something. This started before the. But man, it just grew exponentially during the pandemic. Yeah. And it’s amazing thing there is an army of people like you all over the world. This is not just in the United States. I travel a fairly amount. You would believe the interviews I give in other countries to people in other countries. There is an army of people who begin to address these things. That army greatly expanded during the pandemic, when everybody’s life changed. I’m about to turn 72. I’m not tech savvy at all, but it is utterly amazing to me. I mean, I’ve got to speak to audiences of incredible numbers of people. I hear feedback from it, and there’s an army of people I’ll just say, hey, wait a minute. All this stuff they’ve been telling us, talking about institutions, pseudoscience and all that, but getting to where we’re at in with the scripture we have been handed. A lot of things that we were told it’s what I call the tyranny of the experts, they said this is what all the intelligent people believe. This is what all the educated people believe. This is where all the scholars believe. So you have to believe it too. Now all of a sudden.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

We have an army of people on the Internet asking questions, looking at information, not doing what they’re told, not believing what they’re told to believe, not recognizing everybody that calls themself a scholar as a scholar. And I sit back in amazement and. Thrilled there is an army of Internet warriors for the truth. I come across new people all the time. Like you folks. Who have a burden for this and everybody has an audience and everybody that goes into this seems to expand the audience and it’s just utterly amazing what’s happening in the day and age in which we live. And that’s the good. News. Here’s kind of in my mind. The bad news I always believed. I’ve been in Bible college business since I was 23, taught my first college class of 23 age 23, and I’ve now taught courses at 29 different colleges, 14 the United States, 15 other countries. I always felt like the Bible colleges should be leading the way.

[MCG]

Oh wow.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Dealing with these things, absolutely. And they’re not today. Yeah, they’re exceptions. Thank God I have the privilege to be part of one that is, but very few and the great propagators of the truth today are our social media. I commend you for it. I thank God for you and the legion of folks like you and what’s happened is those folks who wanted to say this is what I insist you all believe they can’t get away with that anymore. Yeah, it’s everything has changed. The tyranny of the expert has been shattered. And I think it’s.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Tremendous.

[MCG]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I wish it had been done by the Bible colleges, but nonetheless I’m still glad it’s being done, yeah.

[MCG]

Yeah, yeah. We need to go into a break, but I have one more question I need to ask at least actually 2, what about the Packer for the cat? Let’s say you should be there and. Of course, people of you and me, our stripe will say no, we shouldn’t be there. And then they say, OK, well, what should be between that 400 year gap between Malachi and Matthew? Sure.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

The Apocrypha was never accepted by any group of people outside the Catholic Church. It never spoke to the body of believers, is frankly, real popular with the Catholic Church because it’s the only thing called Scripture where you can teach Catholic doctrine from, and then the answer is what comes in the 400 years between Malachi.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

In the New Testament, if not the Apocrypha, and the answer is nothing, they were called. Among Bible believers, the 400 silent years for reason for 400 years, there was no new revelation coming to man, and it had to do it had to do a lot of things. One things had to do with God’s judgment on Israel, and God used, first of all the prophets. You came to a time. There were no prophets, and then he used. 400 years later, you find the apostles and a brand new set of revelation coming. But there are reasons why no church groups outside the Roman Catholic Church ever accepted the Apocrypha. The doctrines taught and it don’t match the rest of the scripture. They do match Catholic dogma, and so they were drawn to it in a way that other folks certainly aren’t.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, you said you have.

[MCG]

Another one, yes. Let me show 1. You shoot this one off into the break.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

OK.

[MCG]

You mentioned Doctor Schofield. I’m going to mention Doctor Vernon. McGee. And of course, these are respected men, scholarly men of the past, and it always baffles me. Some of the doctrine they will come up with, like the one you mentioned from Doctor Schofield saying that OK, you know, this is only in there 2 whatever may not be needed here. And then Dr. Vernon McGee said at least in the commentary that.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[MCG]

He believe in the Gap Theory. And I’m like, why do you think men like this would come up with doctrine?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

MHM.

[MCG]

That, even though most of the things they teach are solid, but they seem like this is a disconnect when they come up with doctor and like the the gap. Theory and stuff.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Like that? Well, first of all, they’re both men are respect. And I did profit from the Scofield reference Bible, even though I didn’t profit from its note on March 16th, I didn’t profit from its note on 1st John 57. There are many things that Scofield reference Bible.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Help me with Jay Verna McGee’s commentaries are one of my three favorite sets of comments.

[MCG]

Yes.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Number one, we’re all human. We all get caught up to a certain degree in the moments of our time, and in both of those cases, Schofield was believing on his attitude towards the text descriptor. He was believing exactly what I talked about earlier, what he was being told. This is what all the educated people believe.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

This is what the scholarly people believe this what the intelligent people believe. As strange as it sounds now, the same thing happened with Jay Vernon McGee, because today we laugh at and mock the gap theory. But there was a period of time.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Maybe 50 years or 1900s and 1950s where the gap theory people seemed overwhelmed by the challenge of evolution and people say we have to find a way to account for evolution and to accept evolution. And the gap theory became people’s retreat position to deal with evolution. When we know today so much been done, we we don’t retreat from that today, we’ll meet that debate head on right. But they got overwhelmed for half century by this, even to the point that it impacted some really.

[MCG]

OK.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

To people, men who were real scholars found themselves intimidated by people that knew far less than them. And the answer and evolution need to be saying we don’t care how many of you believe in. It that doesn’t make. It true, right. And today we look back at the gap theory and laugh, but if you read the men who wrote commentaries between 19119 fifties, you’d be amazed. How many of them believed in the gap theory, and we all have that challenge? We all have to be careful not to get caught up in the tyranny of the experts of our time. And I’ll go back to the point I made earlier.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I think in some of our folks are really doing a lot better about this than we’ve ever done because we have access to so much information today. Yeah, we’re not limited to books from one publisher or only heard preachers from one school. I don’t think the tyranny of the experts has the influence today because of the Internet, because of folks like you.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And so many others. You mentioned brother Sean, and he’s an example that of many examples. I’m meeting new people all the time and it’s just amazing. That people in other countries I’ve done broadcasts like this for Australia and Holland and it’s just amazing what all is out there. It’s much harder to make an argument like this is what all the smart people believe. You better agree with me or you’re in trouble. That just doesn’t work anymore.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[MCG]

All right, all right. You’re listening to the Remove embarrassed podcast. We’re sitting down with Doctor Phil Stringer, and we’re talking about whether the Bible is truth or fiction. We’ll be right back.

[Jay]

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[MCG]

Alright, so I have an audio clip. I want you to listen to Doctor Stringer and this is a pastor UMC, Pastor United Methodist Church. His name is Adam Hamilton, and he was preaching the message. And I have an excerpt from the message where he was saying that. The Bible is not 100% trustworthy, and here is his reason. And then I want you to comment on what you hear.

[UMC Pastor Adam Hamilton]

I had a fellow who heard me talk about this once years ago and why I don’t believe in inerrancy, and he was in a church that he did believe in an errancy. He was a he was a pastor and he said I want to debate you. I want you to come to my church. I wanted to debate you about inerrancy. And I’m like, OK, well, let’s how about we little do a little debating right here on the phone before we get to your church and do this? OK. Well, he I said so what’s what’s your point about why? And and Aaron, he is so important, he said. Well, here’s the thing. If you can’t trust the Bible everywhere, how can you trust it anywhere? I’m like, OK, wait a minute. So you’re saying if if I can show an error anywhere in the Bible that makes the entire Bible untrustworthy? Well, he said, how can you count on it? How can you count on it being true somewhere if you find a Bible any, you know, an error in the Bible anywhere. And I said, let me just ask you a question. Your mom and your dad, are they trustworthy people? Well, yeah, of course I said so. You trusted them when you were growing up. You. Do you trust them today? Yep. This is your pastor growing up. Did you trust your pastor? Yeah. Are you trustworthy? Do you feel like you’re a trustworthy pastor for your person? Ohh, yeah. Yeah. I I I’d like to be. I wanna be. It’s great. I said so are. Any of you and errant? Are are you in an errant preacher? You never make any mistakes. Well, no, no, of course not. I said your mom and dad, did they ever make any mistakes? No. Yes. Yes. They made mistakes. I said well, so how? Is it that you can trust them? Even though they made mistakes sometimes. But you don’t think you can trust the Bible if you find anything in there that might be a mistake or inconsistent with modern science or something else, I said, you know, I I don’t understand why you can do that with people that you know. But when it comes to the scripture and we know the overarching message of scripture is trustworthy, and we, you know, we find it speaks to us and God speaks through. Do it, but if you find 1 error, you’re going to throw the whole thing away. That seems like a pretty shaky faith, I said. So let’s, let’s let me let me ask you one other question. I said in our debate that we would have at your church if I could prove just one mistake in the Bible, will I have won the debate? He said. Absolutely. I said OK, well, I I can think of hundreds. But let me just give you. One, I said.

[MCG]

Ohh, that’s where it ends. So I I don’t know exactly what the one was, but I’ll let you take care of the.

[Jay]

Hmm.

[MCG]

Plateau.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, the answer in my mind is kind of obvious. I did not have Christian parents, so I did not have trust for them. Spiritual things. I have wonderful, trustworthy pastor. Just a tremendous man of God. But there is no human being, me included. You should put 100% trust in. You’re always dealing with the human being. And we all bring our weakness. To everything and there is no absolute 100%. Never ever have a question trust for any human being. We’re talking about something very, very different with God and the revelation that he has given to us. And so the real issue again is do we have an authoritative Bible? An error in the Bible would mean we don’t have an authoritative Bible. Do we have a 100% authoritative pastor? No. Do we have 100% authoritative parents? No. Do we have a 100% authoritative Bible and you go back if a holy God? A loving God said. I’m going to give man revelation so he can know what to do, but I’m not gonna make it all correct. He’s gonna have to figure out the part. That’s right. And the part that isn’t. Would that be a loving God? That said, OK, I’m putting you here in the wilderness and I’m giving you a map and following the maps, the key to.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Survival. There are a few errors in the map. You’ll have to figure out along the way what a blessing we’re discussing, whether we have an authoritative Bible or not, that Pastor is not discussing whether he has an authoritative Bible or not, because he’s never going to accept the idea of an authoritative Bible, he doesn’t want. Again an authoritative Bible. I suspect the pastor. He’s going to debate does want authoritative Bible and if we get caught up in the issue of what about this one word or this verse? And we make that the subject of the debate, you’re gonna get bogged down in the weeds forever. There may be a verse I don’t understand, but. If the debate, do we have authoritative Bible going back to our first census together where people think in? Terms of words. Is the God who created the universe capable of communicating his words to us so that we end up knowing everything that we need to know and? That is the essence of the argument. Do I have an authoritative Bible? Do I want one? Do I have authoritative Bible or do I? Yeah. And so getting caught up in, well, is this scenario is that the the issue, do I have an authoritative Bible? And as a human being, I don’t always want an authoritative Bible. And you may be so spiritual. You do. I have moments. Hey, I do not like explaining the doctrine of hell to people.

[Jay]

MHM.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

If it was up to me, there wouldn’t be hell. However, turns out I didn’t create the universe and it’s not up. Me and so I have to recognize that God is the one who tells us. And if I have a moment to illustrate that I was preaching in Canada one time and the folks came to me and they said, you know, we have a American radio talk. Show host. Here on the radio in our town, Windsor ON and said he loves to tear up. Preachers. He dares any preacher to go on the air with him and they said we have. You booked for. 2:00 tomorrow and OK, no problem. I’ve been yelled that before. Yeah, I sleep peacefully tonight. So I went and met him a few minutes before. Not only is he from America, he’s from Indianapolis, where I’m from. Natalie, from Indianapolis. He’s from the east side of town, which is where I was from. We were from the same neighborhood. We went to the same elementary school. He had been one year ahead.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Of me in elementary school. Well, we’re actually getting along fine. You know, we’re talking and doing great. 2 hour program and we’re on the first hour and he’s being very pleasant and nice and asking me easy questions. And and nobody’s calling in.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

You know, we finished the first hour. We go to the second hour and between first second Hour station manager called him his office. And I wasn’t born yesterday. I know he’s telling him to turn it up a notch. It’s controversy that sells on radio, but this was the first question of the second hour, when the Jews that Hitler mercilessly slaughtered in the Holocaust died. Did they go to hell where God was even clearer to them? Than Hitler had been.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

It’s a fun question to answer on live radio and my answer was if an independent Baptist dies without trusting Christ as their savior, they die.

[MCG]

I know.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And go to hell. If a Jew dies without trusting Christ as their savior, they die in good hell. Ohh man. Second hour. You know, everybody’s calling in angry. They’re. Excuse me being a Nazi and pro Hitler.

[Jay]

Ohh boy.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And they’re yelling and screaming at me on the phone, and one guy calls and he says, you know, who deserves to go to hell. He said. I can tell you who deserves. To. Go to hell. You deserve to go to hell. I said. Sir, you have no idea how right you are. That’s the most profound, spiritually deep thing that’s been said on.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

The program all. Day today, but by the grace of God, you’re right.

[MCG]

What?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

You deserve to go to hell, but by the grace of God, I’m not. Going so we get to the end of the program and the guy says to me the program just turned off, he says. Why’d you do it? He said you knew I set you up, he said. Why did you answer that way? I said, I’ll let you in a secret. I don’t even like the doctrine. Hell, if it’s up to me, there wouldn’t be help. But that’s not gonna help anybody.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I have an authoritative Bible and the Bible tells me that there is a hell.

[MCG]

All right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And I have to believe it, even if my heart. Doesn’t like it. Another example I grew up in what people are now focusing on a lot calling hillbilly culture in the United States, and I grew up in Indiana, but I grew up in Indianapolis, part of town. They called little Kentucky. And you know, my family was in them waves of hillbillies that came into.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Indiana and Ohio and Michigan and part of hillbilly culture. Is you never forgive anybody. I mean, you make everybody pay.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Jay]

Really.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Oh yeah, that is an essential hillbilly culture.

[MCG]

That’s where the fruits come into play. The Andy Griffith show, where the what’s the 2 fields and the graffiti, OK.

[Jay]

Wakefields and Hollisters I think.

[MCG]

Yeah, the wakefields and the hollisters, yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Hatfields, mccoys.

[Jay]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Real Life Hat Bill Mccoys, right. My parents were from McCoy territory. Well, that’s great. That’s my culture. I was raised that way. Yeah, but the Bible says. I have to forgive.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Doesn’t matter whether I like it or not, I have to because my authoritative Bible tells me to forgive again, we’re going back to this issue. Do we have an authoritative Bible? You may be so spiritual. You never have any trouble with yours. There’s things in my Bible I really.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Don’t like just? It turns out every time the Bible and I disagree. I’m the one that’s wrong and I have an authoritative Bible. Whether I want to have an authoritative Bible or not.

[MCG]

Yep. Yeah, I can’t agree with you more because you know, I coordinate the soul and the activities at our church and not bragging or anything, but I’ve not. And I would say thousands of dollars over the last decade or so in this area. And one of the repeated team that I run into is people believe that they can go to heaven because of their good works because of maybe the money they’ve given to charity or whatever the case may be. If anything, that would make my life extremely easy is by saying, yeah, keep on doing your good work. Sure, you’ll get to heaven. Yeah. Except yeah, you know, looking at people that you know that are living comfortable lives and are giving money towards certain activities that we would consider good, one that even told me she had the money come directly out of her paycheck and go to charity. She didn’t even see it. And unfortunately, I had to tell.

[Jay]

Exactly. Except Yep.

[MCG]

You know, for by grace are ye saved through faith and not of thyself is the gift of God not of works, lest any man should both so.

[Jay]

But all of that is coming from if you believe that you have an authoritative Bible. We were talking about earlier in the podcast, hey, we gotta meet people where they are. So what are people supposed to do? Just accept the Bible by faith? Or should they be demanding evidence for its veracity and digging into? What are we expecting? People to do.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, should they accept it by safety answers? Yes. Are there many that won’t? And of course, we know that we should not be afraid to encourage people. There are people that you’re not going to be able to deal with. In the way, and the Bible tells us, Paul reasoned with people from the scriptures, right, and we should not be afraid to challenge people, to dig in. We should not be afraid to help people dig in and be willing to answer their questions, which is again, we are told with meekness and fear, to be willing to answer the questions that come to us.

[MCG]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

From people.

[MCG]

Cool.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And, you know, people will debate this. So what kind of angelism do you believe in? Confrontational. You believe in just meeting people on the street and dressing this? Do you believe in church program evangelism? Do you believe in friendship, evangelism. Do you believe in apologetic evangelism? And my answer when people say that to me is yes.

[Jay]

Exactly right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

I believe in all of them. My point is, everybody should be involved in some kind of evangelism. I’m thrilled if you’re involved in any of those kinds of evangelism. There are some people to be reached in each of those ways. And no one will be. Reached by all of those ways.

[MCG]

MHM.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And so I’m thrilled when anybody’s involved in any kind of evangelism. And some people need to be challenged to look for the evidence, face it, deal with it and address it. And yes. Do we want to do that with everybody? I’d rather skip all. That and just talk about some salvation verses right now and when you can do that, go for it. But when you can’t, let’s not give up on people. They have an inquiring mind and they’re willing to look at the evidence.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[Jay]

Mm-hmm.

[MCG]

And definitely.

[Jay]

Well, the fact that there are many different versions of the scriptures in our world today, there’s the King James ESVHC whatever it’s called, there’s so many.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Over 200 English Bibles in print. Yeah, over 200.

[Jay]

Over 200 different. So doesn’t that create a barrier for people to believe in the veracity of the Bible, whether it’s truth or fiction? I mean, Muslims make this claim quite a bit, they say. Well, you know, if there are so many versions of the Bible, how can it be trusted? How can it be true? What would you say to those people? What would the argument be there?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Well, yeah. First of all, let me say if I’m talking. To. Christian people, I’m gonna say yes, that creates A barrier, creates a barrier that should not be lots of people are confused by it. Their people will never get a hold of the gospel because of this confusion that we have created. And by the way, they’re different translations of the Quran. As far as that? Goes and I’ve heard that from Muslims too, so we only have one Bible look on the Internet, see how many different versions of the crime you can order. So I mean, that’s not true either. But this, I know can be a difficulty. But again, I think we have to say it plainly to people. There is an authoritative.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

But there’s Bible after Bible, by the way, where the plan of salvation is messed up. Yeah, and yes, that is a barrier to lots.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Of people. But there is an authoritative Bible, and I hate for a person to have to deal with those issues before they deal with the gospel. But I have met people who cannot concentrate on the gospel till they have. Dealt with those issues. And their times, one-on-one where we have to be willing to say even to lost people. This is why I trust my King James Bible. And why you can too.

[MCG]

Yeah. And some of those barriers I’m thinking about when they are pastors were trying to remove the demon from was it in the gospel? Was it the let the girl or?

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Some of these do not come out that. By prayer, but oh OK.

[MCG]

For print fasting. Yeah. So that’s fast description. I’m getting a blank here and I’m thinking that some people have virus that not going to be removed but by print fasting.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Some people will not be one in a 5 minute presentation of the gospel. I’m for winning everybody with a 5 minute presentation of the gospel that you can. OK, but some people can’t be won by that. And by the grace of God, some are going to take a period of time. There are all kinds of aspects of this. I will tell you my.

[MCG]

Yep.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Own experience, I found that folks who grew up without a father have terrible trouble trusting God.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And you have to get past that before the theological things matter. And so you have to come to everybody where they’re at and try to say, what does this person need? And hopefully that they’re going to find the person who is prepared to deal with these things in the fashion that they need. And that is that they can list.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Too, and that is the challenge of our time. Your title is so tremendous. Professing Christians have put so many barriers in front of people that don’t need to be. We should not be spending time talking about an authoritative Bible. We should be past that. As evangelical Christians, we’re having to spend our time on so many issues.

[MCG]

Mm-hmm. Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

That are not relevant. And then there is the moral tragedies and failures that cause people to say I can’t listen to this. Look at that failure. Look at that failure. Look at that. Those barriers shouldn’t be there, but they are.

[MCG]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

They’re the barriers are. Secular world throws up all the time. I wish those weren’t there, and at one point you always had those barriers from some people in the United States. But there was a period of time that that was never the culture of the United States and those they were the exception, which was great. But my own honest belief, and I’m a person who deals with the apologetic.

[MCG]

Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Guide this kind of thing all the time. There are more people that have emotional barriers. Than have intellectual barriers to accepting the gospel because our society is so dysfunctional and is not easy to reach them. But thank God you’ll never hear me say it’s impossible to reach them because I’ve seen a lot of them. Reached again. You get the book a Jew. You know some you say like with fire, like you pull them out of the fire. You hit them with the message.

[Jay]

Hmm. Yeah.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Right up front, some with love. Some it takes a time frame. Some they have to get past the assumption that all Christians are phonies.

[MCG]

Right.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And you’re not getting past that in the next 5 minutes. And God help us to be soul winners to every kind of person out there that needs the gospel.

[Jay]

Right.

[MCG]

Alright, well, why don’t we wrap it up with this? What is the central theme? Of the Bible.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Central theme of the Bible is Christ’s redemption for mankind.

[MCG]

Amen. Amen.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And everybody that’s honest with themself. Knows they have problems. Boy, it’s figuring out what to do about those problems. Human beings can’t do it. Mankind has devised somebody listed 4000 religions. That probably doesn’t scratch the surface and all of them can be summed up in the idea that this is what men have to do to earn salvation. Yeah, and it never works.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

Only one teaches a different approach to salvation. I’ve said before that other religions basically only differ and they argue over where you should send the check. There is one religion that does not tell you how to earn your salvation. It does not tell you what you need to do. It tells you what has been done and by the grace of God, in spite of the fact as a man I mentioned in that program. So honestly, pointed out I deserve to go. To. Hell. Mm-hmm. I’m not going.

[MCG]

Hmm.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

And the reason I’m not going is because Jesus Christ paid the penalty for my sin on the cross and offered me the free gift of salvation if I would put my faith and trust in him. That is the message that distinguishes us from. Every religion in the world, including all the fake forms of Christianity, central theme of the Bible. Christ died for me.

[MCG]

Amen. Amen. Doctor Frost Stringer. It was indeed a pleasure. Thank you for joining us.

[Dr. Phil Stringer]

My pleasure too. Thank you and wonderful to meet you. And thank you for the opportunity.

[MCG]

Right.

[Jay]

Thank you so much for listening to the Removing Barriers podcast. Make sure to rate us everywhere you listen to podcasts, including Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or Stitcher. Removing barriers, a clear view of the cross.

[MCG]

Thank you for listening. To get a hold of us to support this podcast or to learn more about removing barriers, go to removingbarriers.net. This has been the removing Barriers podcast we attempted to remove barriers so that we all can have a clear view of the cross.