I’m back! I took a long break for Thanksgiving. We had a great time at my mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner. Several games played. I’ll report on those later. Also spent time with my dad, in-laws, and cousins. Good time all around.
Since I was driving a lot during the holiday, I had time to listen to a bunch of podcasts. Mostly Please Convince Me. This is my favorite Christian podcast right now. Jim Wallace does a super job of training us how to be evidential Christians. By that he means Christians who know and are able to rightly handle the evidence supporting our faith. And there is a lot of strong evidence out there. This program is extremely encouraging and interesting. I’m learning things that I didn’t know and seeing things in a new light. My faith is built up every time I listen to this show.
One of the shows I listened to was on The Holy Spirit. Here are a few things that I learned. The Holy Spirit is often given a lesser place to God and Jesus. But we should remember that He is an equal part of the Trinity. Jim states it well in a way I had not heard before – ‘Difference in function does not indicate inferiority’. I thought that was great. Another thing Jim reminded me of is that The Holy Spirit pursued me and worked on me to bring me to Christ and God. He deserves praise and thanks for His tireless, loving effort in this.
Jim has another series of podcasts called ‘Becoming a Christian Casemaker’. This is an excellent series where Jim takes us through how he goes about investigating claims and subjects related to Christianity and other worldviews. Jim is a cold case homicide detective. He instructs us on the techniques he uses for his investigations but applied to Christianity. It is a methodical way to think about the evidence for Christianity. A couple of techniques that stuck out to me were:
- He buys inexpensive Bibles by the case to take notes in using one Bible per topic. He labels the outside of The Bible with the topic for easy reference for the future.
- He uses different colors for different topics in his notes. This is something that I do also.
- He reminds us to be skeptical, as neutral as possible.
- Lastly he reminds us to ‘read the book’. We need to be in God’s Word often so that we know it and are comfortable with it.
PCM is a wonderful ministry. The podcasts are terrific and uplifting. The website is crammed full of useful and interesting articles AND courses. All for free.
If you are a Christian, please visit the site and check out the podcast.
If you are not a Christian but want to know more about Christianity, please visit the site and check out the podcast.
tomg
Go Forth And Game 
Comments
2 responses to “Please Convince Me Podcast and Website”
Is it Tom? I too really enjoy Jim Wallace even though I’m a skeptic. Or especially because I’m a skeptic!
But I think he’s being disingenuous when he says he applies the same standards of a Cold Case investigation to the stories in the Bible.
A man and his wife live alone on a tiny island in Lake Michigan. The wife is murdered. The man says, “I didn’t do it. 2 masked men ran across the surface of the lake, killed my wife and then ran off the same way – right on top of the water. It was an amazing sight!”
Jim would know, without the slightest doubt, that the suspect was lying, crazy or badly mistaken. And the husband would quickly become the lead suspect.
But when an anonymous Bible author says a 33 year old Jewish guy claimed to be the Son of God, and walked on water, Jim considers that totally plausible. And if 2 anonymous Bible authors say the same thing, he considers that ‘corroborating evidence’!
In the ‘real world’ we’d say that 2 crazy people conspired to tell a ridiculous lie.
Jim’s whole shtick is, “I’m no push-over. I only believe after analyzing abundant and convincing evidence. The same way I’d investigate a police case.”
Jim is kidding us and he’s kidding himself. When it comes to the Bible, he throws out his high evidentiary standards and IS a total push-over. Jim believes absolutely anything and everything the Bible says – no matter what.
I have no problem with faith. Jim should admit that is what’s at work here. And he is absolutely NOT employing empirical evidentiary standards to the Bible.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for visiting the site. I appreciate your comments.
Your statement ‘In the ‘real world’ we’d say that 2 crazy people conspired to tell a ridiculous lie.’, using your criteria from the husband scenario you are comparing this to, should read ‘tell a ridiculous lie, crazy, or badly mistaken.’ You should add ‘telling the truth’ to the mix as well. That is a possibility until proven not to be.
I again appreciate your comments. They cause me to think about what I believe and to think outside my comfort zone. This is good.
Have a pleasant day.
tomg