Thank you very much.

Hello friends, great vocal here for stand a reason and so glad to be with you today and to talk to you about things that really matter share my thoughts on them and then you could weigh them and as I've said in the past maybe eat the meat and throw away the bones because there's always bones, you know, I know that not everything that I say is accurate. I know that because I am not the only person in the world that is right on

everything. The problem is I just don't know the things that aren't accurate and are accurate. So, you know, I give you my point of view. I give you, as I've said, a piece of my mind and then you can sort it out whatever you're persuaded to believe. There you go.

And incidentally, this is just another little thing that I learned in my philosophy studies, getting my MA under JP Moreland for those many years at Talbot is that you don't actually choose your beliefs.

That's called doxastic volunteerism. Doxastic having to do with beliefs and volunteerism has having to do with the voluntary action. I can't, for example, just choose to believe there's an elephant sitting next to me right now. I can't do that because I know there's not so I can't make myself believe.

And the way we end up believing is by being confronted with evidence reasons. And I mean, it might be the evidence of your sites. It might be your of your site rather. It might be the evidence of information given to you or just your five senses as you're moving around.

But we're making these calculations all the time and we are forming beliefs all the time about the circumstances that we're in.

And a lot of people don't believe things that are true because they don't have enough information. They have bad information that causes them to believe the wrong things. Notice the language I use that causes them to believe the wrong things or false things.

That's why apologetics is so important. Now, I'm not at all rolling out the role of the Holy Spirit because there is another element that's an element of rebellion. And I guess you could characterize it as a conformational bias if you're going to use kind of psychological terminology.

But all that means is you've set you have set your mind on one course of action and you're not going to listen to the evidence contrary to it. I call that prejudice. You have prejudged. You have a prejudicial point of view.

But if you're willing to listen to the other side and your mind is open, this is an environment for you to be persuaded. Now, when it comes to persuasion about the critical things about God and salvation, this is where the Holy Spirit plays a not just a vital role.

But in my view of the decisive role without the Holy Spirit, forget about it. And incidentally, it doesn't matter what theological conviction you have about free will and sovereignty. We all acknowledge the Holy Spirit is essential.

Some will say it's a necessary but not sufficient condition. Others will say it is sufficient. But in any event, the Holy Spirit has to play a role.

And there's a mystery in how that actually works out. And we can't always figure it out ourselves. We don't have to. What we do is fulfill our responsibility. We do our part.

We communicate the truth as accurately, as graciously, as effectively, as we're able. And then God takes it from there. Now, that part is 100% our responsibility.

And this is one reason that I'm here and I'm a student of my own craft and you are a student after fashion listening to programs like this so that you can get better at your thinking and increase your stock of true beliefs and decrease your stock of bad beliefs by paying attention.

And that's especially critical when it comes to spiritual issues. And so that's why I'm here and I invite you to consider the things I have to say and then make your own decisions.

Now, I had a wonderful time on Sunday for an hour and a half actually is I think about what we had all told we started a little late people were coming in a little late on our Meet the Teacher event at four o'clock. And then I went spun right past the hour and just kept going.

Answering questions after I've done an introductory session on on street smarts the new book coming out September 12th subtitled using questions to answer Christianity's toughest challenges.

Now, some of you many, if you've listened for a while, you know, I've mentioned this a bit now keep mentioning it partly because it's just good marketing partly because I want you to know that this is available if you're just tuning in also it just occurred to me this being our 30th anniversary this year we started in May 1st, 1993.

Here we are into the summer now 2023 we this is our 30 year celebration actually we're beginning our 31st year but Melinda never liked me talking about dates like that way so so this is our 30th year.

And and it what strikes me now that I think about it is the book street smarts is is really a compilation of all that I've been working on for 30 years with Stan the reason the the efforts the thinking the writing the work my general approach to doing what I do making the case for Christianity is really captured in this now 85,000.

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