How Kinds (Not Species) Originated – Pastor Andrew Rappaport and Dr. Anthony Silvestro

[00:00:00] 7:19 and now here’s your host Kevin Conover bring your time

[00:00:06] welcome to educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my website to educate for life dot o-r-g and you can check out

[00:00:12] all kinds of apologetic resources on there I just got back from the awana

[00:00:17] camp last week got to be able to hang out with all the Awana honors Academy

[00:00:23] participants at the camp up in Idlewild was a lot of fun with Michael Sims and

[00:00:28] Tim San Vall I had a really good time with those guys and it was just a big blessing so we’re back in town here and

[00:00:34] day after fourth of July I hope you guys had a good fourth celebrating our independence and our freedoms one of

[00:00:41] those big freedoms is freedom of religion and we’re very grateful for the people who who considered sacrificing

[00:00:48] their lives so that we could have that freedom it’s absolutely phenomenal and we are very blessed to live in a country

[00:00:53] where we have the freedom to share the gospel which brings me to my guests today I have on the air with me dr. aunt

[00:01:00] Anthony silvestro and pastor Andrew Rappaport and these guys just got back

[00:01:07] from the ambassadors Academy with Ray Comfort and Living Waters is that right guys yeah yeah right okay so why don’t

[00:01:15] we start off a little bit about where you guys are coming from what your angle is everybody has a testimony pastor

[00:01:22] Andrew why don’t you share with us I read your your testimony it’s an amazing testimony sad but at the same time God

[00:01:29] uses our pains to bring about good things right yeah so I come from a Jewish background actually this past

[00:01:35] week I actually was the first time I got to meet someone that can identify with my background his parents actually fully

[00:01:40] disowned him cut him out of the will my parents actually when he became a Christian he became a Christian yeah

[00:01:46] when I became a Christian actually I became a Christian two years before I said anything to anybody so I was a

[00:01:53] really bold witness super cool no I because the response from Jewish families often was gonna it well

[00:02:00] actually the response that I knew they would have is what they did have they went in casket shopping and they were

[00:02:06] made again I’m sorry casket shopping they were going to bury an empty casket whoa and I was going to be dead to them

[00:02:11] I would be completely cut as if I don’t exist how old were you when that happened though I was 18 years

[00:02:17] old okay and so it was a thing where there was we had an incident that happen in our family my dad actually said

[00:02:23] that’s what prevented him from going through with it and but he then turned

[00:02:29] around said but I’m not paying for any more of your college education if you’re gonna continue with this and I had

[00:02:34] already expected that that’s why I was in ROTC oh and he’d never won any of his boys to be in military cuz he almost got

[00:02:41] killed in the in the military and so he didn’t want his boys in military so he actually decided to finish paying that

[00:02:48] but we didn’t have a you know we had a very strange relationship until really about when I was 47 I tried sharing the

[00:02:55] gospel with him again and he hauled off and struck me he was to be a Golden Gloves boxer so at 72 he

[00:03:01] still had a really good right hook Wow and so he actually punched you oh yeah yeah oh my goodness the only two times

[00:03:08] I’ve ever been hit sharing the gospel and I do I do it in the in the streets of New York City yeah the only time I’ve ever been hit was my mother at 18 and my father at 47

[00:03:15] and so what happened was a couple years later we’re at Thanksgiving again and I’ve always been kind of the black sheep

[00:03:22] of the family and basically my wife you know was thanking my dad for son he had done and was just explaining how the two

[00:03:28] of us had met and got by God’s providence I’m just walking by hearing the story and she’s saying how she

[00:03:34] bought some food for me not a big deal but I just walked by and told said oh I

[00:03:39] don’t think dad ever knew I was homeless and she’s like oh I was gonna say that now we just walked on next day he was

[00:03:44] crushed me here’s a guy who has the resources to take care of me I mean yeah I don’t know very well-to-do individual

[00:03:50] yeah any real he realized that you know our relationship was so strained that I

[00:03:56] was literally living out of a car and wouldn’t go to him Wow so that is amazing now is he still

[00:04:04] living today he’s still alive today he’s gonna who he’ll have his 80th birthday coming up

[00:04:09] beginning next year uh-huh so we’re still praying for ya stop praying calm okay I mean a huge huge thing for and

[00:04:16] this may not seem like a huge thing but for us it is he when I gave him for his birthday I gave him a Josephus works

[00:04:22] which yeah he returned to me shrink-wrapped it’s a Jewish figured Jewish Torian you like reading history that’d

[00:04:28] be great yeah he returned it to me unopened but what ended up happening is

[00:04:33] I gave him a copy of my book what do they believe and he actually has it in his on a shelf in his library he kept it

[00:04:39] and this is in the last couple years that I was able to give it to him and he actually was showing it to someone so

[00:04:45] you have to understand it’s been it seemed like a big deal but when to his friends admitting his son wrote a book

[00:04:50] and as a Christian yeah as huge yeah well okay and so pastor

[00:04:56] you’re the you’re the author of the book what do they believe that focuses on six major world religions and exactly what

[00:05:02] they believe so for our listeners out there if they want to pick up a copy of that book they can get it off your website and your website is striving for

[00:05:11] eternity org right that is okay and then you also run a Christian podcast community or which will talk more to our

[00:05:18] listeners about and let them know about 2dr Silvestro you you used to actually

[00:05:25] be an evolutionist and today you’re a creationist so you guys do have pretty too wild backgrounds that are very

[00:05:31] completely contrary to where you are today he evolved evolve that’s right okay so so break that down for our

[00:05:38] listeners what what did you grow up in a Christian family and what was the progression here I did not I grew up in

[00:05:44] a Catholic family and it was one of those we consider ourselves a good Catholic family because we didn’t go just two times a year eastern Christmas

[00:05:51] we also went and Palm Sunday okay you had to get your palms to fold it into a

[00:05:56] cross right you keep it on your your wall all year so you get the next set of palms next year there you go

[00:06:02] so I actually think we attended church more for weddings than we did actually going to church throughout the year yeah

[00:06:07] so having said that obviously I didn’t believe in the real Jesus and while I did pray growing up it wasn’t it wasn’t

[00:06:15] at the forefront of my mind growing up and so I lived a life being unsaved through high school college in dental

[00:06:22] school and it was shortly after I graduated from dental school that’s a god exposed me to my sins and ended up

[00:06:30] getting saved but there’s still a lot in the past that was there so I was in a

[00:06:35] math and chemistry double major I was steeped in two secular science and evolution

[00:06:40] and I even remember after I got saved I was I was brutal to my wife’s friends who were you believe the Bible they said

[00:06:48] God created about 6000 years ago but they couldn’t defend it and so I I blood ginned him every chance like again oh

[00:06:54] wow and then just a few years after this and then God God got the final final word

[00:07:00] here how do you write a book proving yourself wrong that’s right well I’ll tell you how this happens yeah

[00:07:06] so we ended up going down to the Creation Museum on accident we’re passing through to go down to him by

[00:07:12] accident God’s providence at the time I thought it was an accident yeah we went

[00:07:18] to the Creation Museum and after spending several hours there and an hour with dr. Jason Lisle who who has spent

[00:07:25] some time with me yeah he’s been on my radio program too he was actually the very first person I interviewed on my podcast and radio program so that’s

[00:07:32] wonderful yeah so yeah he’s he’s he says something big for me he’s a yeah a big

[00:07:38] scientist in my life yeah you’re gonna have a harder time debating with him than you would you know your neighbor

[00:07:43] down the street or whatever right right so I literally walked out of the museum telling my wife I think I have to

[00:07:49] rethink everything I’ve ever learned and that’s exactly what happened and so the

[00:07:54] research I started to do the reading I started to do ended up getting me to start teaching and churches in the area

[00:08:00] and eventually a few years later I spun off the book in part due to that

[00:08:06] research that’s fantastic yeah I was telling for our listeners dr.

[00:08:12] silvestro here he wrote this book on the origin of kinds and we titled the podcast this because you know the the

[00:08:20] Darwin’s original book was on the Origin of Species but if you understand the creation/evolution debate you know that

[00:08:28] creationists believe that kinds the families right there’s change within kinds but there’s not change from one

[00:08:34] kind to another and so I want to give you a chance to explain this more you have the subtitle by means of Creator

[00:08:40] God and the preservation of souls in the struggle for eternity that’s really cool I love this title so very interesting

[00:08:49] story so for our listeners tell us where you’re at currently as far as the ministry

[00:08:54] doing and what you’re what you’re working on and by the way pastor Andrew actually wrote the forward to the book

[00:09:02] and yeah I want to know how you guys met to and and you’re kind of working together now also so that’s really cool

[00:09:08] so tell us a little bit more about where you’re at currently with ministry and what you’re trying to achieve well our

[00:09:15] biggest thing is trying to get into churches to be able to teach yeah a lot of parish – trees want to come into churches as

[00:09:22] the authority in certain subjects and they want churches to rely on that

[00:09:27] parachurch ministry forever in terms of being able to continue to teach where

[00:09:33] our model is to come into churches and equip the people they are equip the pastor they’re equip teachers there so

[00:09:39] that they can continue to teach their church and they can continue to propagate it’s it’s really the discipleship model that we see in the

[00:09:46] Bible yeah absolutely and then pastor Rapoport how did you meet meet dr. Celeste row well we you to

[00:09:56] tell that part I mean when we first met her when we when we really got to know each other so I you could tell when we

[00:10:02] first met but really quick it was he came to one of our events that we do in Ohio we do an equip Ohio train people to

[00:10:09] basically go on evangelizing yeah take them out evangelizing he came to the event was very encouraged and basically

[00:10:17] you know we met there we then did a conference to get our you know smaller event together and I realized he had a

[00:10:24] lot of you know raw potential so always hey but um you know it was just

[00:10:30] something where you know I being hate to admit it I’m the older one but you know

[00:10:36] we are a disciple in ministry I figured you know bring him under us as we were doing with discipline guys so they could

[00:10:42] be further in their own ministries it didn’t work that way he he just became

[00:10:48] part of us but really what it was is so he wouldn’t make the same mistakes that I had made starting out in ministry

[00:10:53] that’s awesome and that’s a really cool story because that we need more of that in the church we’re coming up on a quick

[00:10:58] break here but if you’re listening today my guests are dr. Anthony silvestro and

[00:11:03] pastor Andrew Rappaport and they both have ministries you can check them

[00:11:08] his book doctor Sylvester’s book on the origin of kinds calm if you want to check that out and then we’re also

[00:11:15] looking at striving for eternity org if you want to see what they’re doing if

[00:11:21] you want to support them if you want to get involved with what they’re doing all great opportunities so stay with us we’re gonna be right back

[00:11:27] [Music]

[00:11:42] Luke Gibson of LG equipment supports educate for life with Kevin Conover Luke

[00:11:47] grew up in the construction industry and now serves LG’s commercial and residential customers throughout

[00:11:53] Southern California whether you need grading paving hauling demolition on-site bulk water service

[00:11:58] water trucks tankers and towers call LG equipment at six one nine nine nine

[00:12:03] eight zero nine two four learn more at LG equipment comm six one nine nine nine

[00:12:10] eight zero nine two four [Music]

[00:12:27] hey thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover I hope you’ve enjoyed the

[00:12:32] program so far I’ve got two amazing guys on the program before I hop back to them

[00:12:38] I actually am speaking at Calvary Chapel Oceanside tonight at 7:00 p.m. on the

[00:12:44] scientific for site in the Bible so we got three people here who whose jobs are

[00:12:49] to defend the Bible and so dr. dr.

[00:12:55] Silvestro you you titled the book I wanted to ask you about this you said it

[00:13:01] in your description of the book that there’s three things that you’re doing there’s not a book like this that covers

[00:13:07] presuppositional apologetics evangelism and then also creation evidences so can

[00:13:13] you explain I think people know generally what creation evidences are

[00:13:19] they know what the gospel is but a lot of people don’t know what presuppositional apologetics is and how do you blend those in the book if you

[00:13:25] could for our listeners yes so what we did unique in this book is is I would

[00:13:30] consider myself a presuppositionalist so there are some guys out there that think that we can take evidences and pile pile

[00:13:37] and evidence upon evidence upon evidence to to get somebody to believe in theism

[00:13:43] and then hopefully the right God yeah long run I would take a different approach I would say wait a minute the

[00:13:49] very reason that you can use your senses and talk with me right now the ability

[00:13:56] for you to have reason in order to talk with me right now is because God exists

[00:14:01] and because you’re made in His image okay and if somebody said to you yeah but I don’t believe in God I believe we

[00:14:06] just evolved how would you respond to somebody who said something like that this happens all the time on the streets

[00:14:12] and so that so this is what I would do I will ask the person okay so you believe you evolved that means you believe that

[00:14:18] through billions of chemical reactions random chemical reactions doing nothing but obeying laws of chemistry and

[00:14:24] physics now of course I’m not gonna ask you where those laws of chemistry and physics came from first just we’re gonna

[00:14:30] assume that they’re already there but you believe that through all these billions of years and billions chemical reactions that you went from pond scum

[00:14:37] or dirt or whatever to you today is that correct and they would answer me yes every time than you so that means you’re

[00:14:43] standing here is a bag of random chemical reactions doing nothing but obeying the laws of chemistry and

[00:14:49] physics right yep yep that’s me that’s right okay mister evolutionists explain to me

[00:14:54] how you’re having a conversation with me right now how are you controlling your words while we’re talking when you’ve

[00:15:01] already told me that that everything that’s going on in this mixed bag of chemical reactions is doing nothing but

[00:15:07] obeying the laws of chemistry and physics we have a breakdown here in logic and so that’s how I’d walk

[00:15:12] somebody through it yeah the reality is is that they can’t justify their ability to use reason if

[00:15:18] they’re just a bag of random chemical reactions and and they’re and you’re the reasoning for this is that they’re just

[00:15:25] a cause and effect machine if they’re just a product of chemistry and physics is that what you’re saying you want to

[00:15:31] add something to that I was gonna just say I mean chemical reactions I mean take baking soda and vinegar yeah is it

[00:15:37] morally right or wrong when you mix them it’s neither it’s just a chemical reaction ah it’s not working processes correct it

[00:15:44] it’s only gonna produce a material thing and the easiest way to understand the presuppositional argument is what we’re

[00:15:50] speaking of is immaterial things truth knowledge laws of logic concepts you’re

[00:15:56] my voice is giving sound but you’re understanding what I’m saying because you have the concept of what the words

[00:16:01] mean and how they Sam those are immaterial you can’t have that in a material world I mean the thing is and

[00:16:08] one of the things dr. special will always bring up yeah I’m surprised he didn’t start with this is the reality is

[00:16:14] this everyone knows God exists when someone comes out to us and says well I don’t believe God exists I have my responses

[00:16:20] I’m sorry God disagrees with you and he knows you better Romans chapter 1 says that everybody is without excuse they

[00:16:26] all have the knowledge of God yeah that’s Romans 1 Romans chapter 2 says they all have a conscience they

[00:16:33] know right from wrong therefore they’re without excuse it’s when they come to us and say well I don’t believe there’s God

[00:16:39] sorry God doesn’t agree with you yeah now do you use that on a regular basis like

[00:16:44] when you’re out like you you are just this last week with the ambassador’s group do you use this when you’re

[00:16:51] talking on the streets to somebody I use it all the time because many people come up to you and

[00:16:57] say I don’t believe God exists any of what I found is worked in a lot of cases I’ll just look somebody directly in the

[00:17:03] eyes I’ll change my entire countenance I’ll change how my voice is and I’ll say look you and I both know God exists what

[00:17:10] happens and I’ve had people burst out into tears on the spot going from a

[00:17:15] normal you know a normal vitriolic type person yeah as they’re speaking to you

[00:17:21] burst out into tears having other people all of a sudden get quiet and now pull

[00:17:26] you off to the side and have a conversation with you I will tell you almost everybody I’ve talked to you that says they don’t believe God exists they

[00:17:33] had something tragic happen in their life mhm yes it’s one of the things that you and I find often is you have these

[00:17:38] guys at a hardcore atheist yeah I’ll usually just ask them what church did you grow up in and it’s amazing because

[00:17:44] almost every time I’ve only had once at a prize of times yeah where someone

[00:17:50] didn’t tell me some incident that either they were in a legalistic Church or something happened in church or they’re

[00:17:56] they’re rebelling against their parents it’s it’s usually one of those threes we went out to in Cleveland Ohio too after

[00:18:03] there was a gay pride parade we didn’t go for that it was actually over we’re out to sharing the gospel and it was

[00:18:08] amazing how many people wanted to argue that they were Christian or they grew up Christian and I just asked him so tell

[00:18:15] me about your family background and almost every time they’re rebelling against their parents and this is like the greatest way that they could show

[00:18:21] their rebellion and so what do you do when when you’re talking to somebody because I’ve experienced that all the

[00:18:26] time also what do you what do you say to somebody who that’s where they’re going it’s really more about hey I’m rebelling

[00:18:32] how do you get through that hard heart or that heart that’s grown bitter over

[00:18:37] time because of tragedy in their life what what do you do well as we read in the Bible a gospel is the power of God

[00:18:43] in a salvation and so I’m gonna go right back into evangelistic mode at this point now of course I’m going to see

[00:18:51] where they’re coming from I’m gonna talk to him about it and and oftentimes what we’re gonna have to bring up is why is there bad why is

[00:18:58] there good and bad in this world why did bad things happen to you mm-hm and so there’s some things usually

[00:19:03] break down right one of the biggest questions out there is why do bad things happen to good people yeah which as we know as a

[00:19:09] loaded question here as apologists right yeah so we have to walk through where do we get an understanding of good and bad from that nobody is actually good

[00:19:17] according to the Bible and the bad that they’ve suffered is a result of the

[00:19:22] fallen world that we live in and the and the human nature this in nature that we have going all the way back to Adam and

[00:19:28] Eve yeah and I’m as a pastor I come at it you know cuz I’m gonna be more of the counselor yeah okay yeah but here’s the

[00:19:36] thing that I’m gonna end up doing that when I sit and I’m talking with him trying to find out what’s going on I’m gonna try to counsel him clearly with

[00:19:41] the gospel but it’s also a perception issue that they have I remember one gentleman in New York City he was he was

[00:19:47] like oh well there isn’t a god well how do why do you say there is no God he’s like because if there was a god I prayed as I was a child and I he didn’t answer

[00:19:54] my prayers what prayers didn’t he answer he’s like well I have this handicap I’m you know

[00:20:00] I’m mentally challenged and it makes me have to work harder than everyone else I said so what what do you do for work he

[00:20:06] was a vice president of his company Wow and I said so let me get this straight you had to work harder than everybody

[00:20:11] else he’s like yeah I’m in school yeah I you know I didn’t have a disease either one I said let me ask you a question if

[00:20:17] you didn’t have to work as hard as everybody else would you be the vice president in your company and it was

[00:20:23] like the light bulb went off with him and he suddenly realized wait there’s a different perspective of this I said so

[00:20:28] realistically God actually was you could have been using this thing in your life to get you to where you are today you’re

[00:20:35] very proud of where you’re at today but where you were rejecting him he was actually using struggle in your life to

[00:20:42] get you to where you would never be on your own and that was like a changing point so sometimes I’m gonna because of

[00:20:48] the the counseling background I’m I’m gonna deal with that sometimes totally and I mean that’s very common is I think

[00:20:53] that it’s true that a lot of times our perspective on the difficult things that are happening in our life if we were to

[00:20:59] see through God’s eyes he’d be go wait you just got to have some patience to see what I’m making you into right so I

[00:21:05] mean that’s all throughout scripture so that’s pretty phenomenal so you put you pack all of that into this book here huh

[00:21:12] that’s right okay so what can somebody expect to get out of this when they if they if they buy this book off of

[00:21:18] striving for eternity org or the other website what are the weather they expected to

[00:21:24] get out of this book well there’s several things similar to when you walk into the Creation Museum in Kentucky ken

[00:21:30] ham’s Museum there yeah the first room and you walk into the walk through history is a dinosaur

[00:21:36] fossil and two different scientists looking at it you’ve got a creation scientist and you have a secular scientist looking at the exact same

[00:21:43] evidence but come to completely different conclusions because their presuppositions are different their

[00:21:49] worldviews different mm-hmm so in this book the first chapter is going to be in

[00:21:54] regards to worldviews we’re gonna teach the correct biblical worldview and guess where that starts at the beginning of

[00:21:59] Genesis so that’s critical right right this is the whole thing that’s happening

[00:22:05] right now on the church with a lot of Christians saying hey I’m an evolutionist and you can be an evolutionist and you can be a Christian

[00:22:11] too so I don’t want I didn’t want to interrupt you there but keep going where you’re going and I want to pick up with

[00:22:17] that when we come back on our next segment is what’s the whole thing you know this big fight over evolution and Christianity absolutely so we start off

[00:22:25] the book with with this worldview issue we walk through the beginning in Genesis what happens in the beginning of Genesis

[00:22:30] and then the rest of the book is really meant it meant to get the evangelists their mind correct in how we are going

[00:22:37] out to evangelize how to get the logic right and so we want to teach people a lay level presuppositional apologetics

[00:22:44] most of the pre-sub books that are out there are very difficult to understand yes yes and this was my this was my

[00:22:50] initial problem with presuppositions book and I was like how am I gonna use

[00:22:55] this to share with the the guy down on the street you know I go down every month down and pass out hotdogs and

[00:23:00] water and we share the gospel with people and I was just like trying to do presuppositional and I’m like whoa these

[00:23:06] people are not understanding what I’m saying at all you know so a lay level let’s let’s pause right there and that’s

[00:23:13] a good tease for our people when we come back we’ll talk about how to use presuppositional apologetics on a real basic level that’s not real academic but

[00:23:21] something that the average person on the street can understand so stay with us my guests today are dr. Anthony Silvestro

[00:23:27] and pastor pastor Andrew Rappaport and these guys are both evangelists and have

[00:23:33] awesome ministries so stay with us we’ll be right back [Music]

[00:23:51] hi this is Jason hall president of team home loans a branch of synergy one lending I just want to take this

[00:23:58] opportunity to thank Kevin Conover for the profound impact he’s had on mine and my wife’s spiritual life as well as

[00:24:04] being an incredible teacher while our kids were his students his knowledge and passion have taught us all how important

[00:24:10] it is to be defenders of our faith it’s our honor and privilege to support Kevin and a show is our sincere hope and

[00:24:16] prayer that you will continue to learn to be defenders of your faith through Kevin’s radio show and through his educate for life teachings thank you

[00:24:23] Kevin from the hall family and team Home Loans

[00:24:37] thanks for being here today you’re on educate for life radio we’re in Southern California and if you’re listening

[00:24:43] locally we’re on FM 106.1 in North County and we’re on a m12 10k praise

[00:24:50] down here in the kind of the middle of San Diego East County area and thanks

[00:24:56] for tuning in for being with us today if you’re watching on YouTube you can see us all on the on the stream here and

[00:25:02] I’ve got some wonderful guests here both good-looking guys and and and so you

[00:25:10] need glasses doctor a good face ready okay dr. Anthony Silvestro is has degrees in math

[00:25:16] and chemistry from baldwin-wallace college he attended Ohio State University College of Dentistry and he’s

[00:25:22] actually you’ve given up dentistry a bit you’re still hanging on a little bit but you’re moving into full-time ministry is

[00:25:28] that right it’s right so my wife and I we felt several years ago yeah that we

[00:25:33] were being drawn to ministry more and we ended up for two and a half years really planning it out and how we were going to

[00:25:39] have our exit strategy so she ran the office I was the dentist there and we’ve worked together for many years

[00:25:45] yeah we finally sold it at the end of October and so now I I stick around at work one or two days a week that is

[00:25:51] great and enjoy doing that that’s really cool yeah and then pastor Andrew how long have you been doing ministry for oh

[00:25:57] that gives away my age we shouldn’t go there so we’re at the ambassadors

[00:26:02] Academy yeah more hair that is so I had I had a gentleman who says he’s like so how long have you been doing open-air

[00:26:07] evangelism yeah and I said that longer than I know but the earliest I could date is 1992 he goes oh she you’ve been

[00:26:13] doing this like for two years longer than I’ve been alive and I was a hurts like really yeah I’ve been doing I mean

[00:26:20] I’ve been in in ministry for a long time I’ve been my backgrounds actually

[00:26:26] computer science yeah but you got saved when you were 18 oh and I know 69 six I say when a 16 I just didn’t tell my my

[00:26:33] parents found out by chance yeah gonna claim that but really God’s providence yeah um they they basically were going

[00:26:40] through my stuff when I came home from college and found a bunch of gospel tracts and things like that Wow and

[00:26:46] freaked out and so when I came home from a friend’s house I was away for a couple days I came home

[00:26:53] and it was they confronted you yeah it was it was a until it really turned ugly

[00:26:58] once my mother asked have you been baptized and when I said I was that’s that’s when she started slapping me Wow

[00:27:04] yeah that’s a big thing so at what point did you decide you know what I’m gonna

[00:27:10] go out and I want to actually become in full-time ministry how old were you in that high you know I don’t really know I

[00:27:16] was just always you know after I got out of college I got involved in a church

[00:27:22] yeah and I just started putting in tons of hours I don’t sleep so okay um anyone

[00:27:28] that would like the running joke my wife made me for her to agree to marry me she said I had to sleep every night yeah and

[00:27:35] so we’ve agreed on three hours of sleep a night um and so I’ve tried to keep that most nights okay not always but but yeah it’s

[00:27:43] just the way God’s created me I don’t I don’t require a las leap so I was um you know I’ve been involved in church for

[00:27:50] years pastored a Chinese Church my wife is from Hong Kong aap always asked me what’s a good little Jewish boy doing in

[00:27:56] a Chinese Church I’m always from Hong Kong dances so do they is it in Chinese we would have we had a Chinese pastor

[00:28:02] vibe I preached in English okay so we was actually larger unlike most Chinese

[00:28:07] churches yeah so that’s awesome yeah we’ve been in I’ve been doing open air and evangelism for you know

[00:28:14] evangeline for 30 years open air early it’s like a date back is 92 wow that’s

[00:28:19] fantastic so you wrote the forward to the book here to dr. a Sylvester’s book

[00:28:25] so what did you write what is different about this look compared to other books that are out there there are a lot of

[00:28:30] books I mean you can get a whole ton of books from Answers in Genesis I see are all the creation ministries that will

[00:28:36] give you a background in creation science which is really helpful but it’s

[00:28:42] helpful to the Christian it doesn’t really show you how to use it in evangelism yeah and definitely not in

[00:28:47] apologize that’s why you see so many of people that get into creation ministries they end up focusing on evidence and the

[00:28:53] problem is that people we speak to they don’t have an evidence problem they have a spiritual problem and that’s why we

[00:28:58] approach it from the presuppositional way we’re both used a lot of great comforts outline

[00:29:04] so what we use the good person test style sure but is it fits with our though style that I teach at ambassador

[00:29:10] evangelism which is learn you’re asking good questions he does that using humor being polite fans like that to disarm

[00:29:17] people and then we get to to using the law here’s the thing that you find is most people will focus okay you go to

[00:29:23] Ray Comfort of Living Waters you have a ton of information on how to evangelize but they’ll get into a little bit of

[00:29:30] apologetics but it’s not their expertise then you get those you mentioned Bahnson and there’s others out there that have

[00:29:35] tried to make it easier to understand and it’s it’s for its I don’t understand why it’s a hard thing to understand it

[00:29:41] actually is quite simple yeah what this book’s does is bring all three of those together unlike any other book because

[00:29:47] all the other books deal with them as stovepipes you have you have either presuppositional apologetics creation

[00:29:53] science or evangelism but these work together and that’s what this book does

[00:29:58] different than any other it brings these together so you can see how when you’re on the street and someone’s challenging

[00:30:04] you how to answer presuppositional e while having the creation support because really what’s it here’s what’s

[00:30:11] really at stake this is why creation is a debate because people today especially

[00:30:17] in the church do not believe in the sufficiency of Scripture and that’s what this does the creation science is really

[00:30:24] for the Christian to be like okay I the Bible is reliable yeah it isn’t

[00:30:29] sufficient it’s sufficient yeah and we can use this in Evangeline but it’s the thing is that this book will bring those

[00:30:36] three together so you can see in a conversation and one of the chapters doctrinal structure puts out a

[00:30:42] conversation how will he would walk through a very very common conversation

[00:30:47] that he has yeah and you can see how the all three of them interplay with one another that’s really cool it makes it

[00:30:53] very practice all the time you know look if I prove to you that the flood actually happened but I don’t ultimately

[00:30:59] share the gospel right and I’m not able to communicate that effectively and really I haven’t done what I’m supposed

[00:31:04] to do and so it’s it doesn’t do anybody any good to have all this head knowledge about why creation is true but then

[00:31:10] actually not put it to good use right that’s right yeah so break this down for

[00:31:16] me why did you why did you choose on actually for our listeners on the origin of kinds rather than on the Origin of

[00:31:22] Species well obviously on the Origin of Species is a book written by Charles Darwin yeah

[00:31:29] about 160 years ago and he didn’t understand animals properly right so

[00:31:35] from another evolutionary worldview that we believe or they believe somehow things came together into a cell and

[00:31:40] everything has evolved from there yeah and so speciation as time goes on would

[00:31:46] just be a natural progression of evolution we take a different view we

[00:31:52] look at what the Bible says so in the beginning of Genesis there’s 10 different times it says that God created

[00:31:57] each kind or after its own kind or reproduce after its own kind we never

[00:32:03] see one kind turning into another kind and so as you stated in the beginning of the show every created kind that God

[00:32:10] made things can things can adapt within that kind to different situations and

[00:32:16] environments but you’ll never see those turn into another kind somewhere else yeah I was just having this conversation

[00:32:22] with a actually it was a a Jewish young Jewish kid he was in his early 20s and

[00:32:27] he was saying I believe in evolution I said have you ever seen one kind of animal change in another he said no

[00:32:33] nobody’s ever seen it takes millions years and so then we’re back to the whole okay well that’s not objective science there but this is evidence-based

[00:32:40] right and so now we’re back to the presuppositional so I promised our listeners even though we’re running out

[00:32:45] of time here but I promised our listeners that in this segment we would talk about presuppositional for the layperson who

[00:32:51] wants to answer that well I I guess I can start in in so pastor andrew has

[00:32:57] already kind of laid some of the groundwork for us here the biggest issue is is how does somebody have an ability to reason how do they have an ability to

[00:33:05] use laws of logic that can’t be the product of of a materialistic world yeah

[00:33:11] and so when we’re in a conversation with somebody and they’re using their their ability to reason they have to be able

[00:33:17] to account for that and they can’t do it if they’re just the the Chad they’re the

[00:33:22] product of chance chemical reactions over time okay now if somebody let’s say you’re talking with somebody here about

[00:33:27] this and they they say I can reason because I can reason and I don’t need God to be able to reason why should

[00:33:34] I believe in God simply because because I can reason I just can that’s the way

[00:33:39] it is yeah that would be a circular argument there they’re answering they’re answering the exact question that’s

[00:33:46] right is that they’re using the question beginning the question to answer their question yeah and again and you can’t do

[00:33:52] that so what if somebody says something like this and this is slightly sophisticated they say well we’re just

[00:33:57] very sophisticated artificial intelligence machines that’s all we are and the reason we can reason is just

[00:34:03] because it looks like you know we have this freedom to think but we don’t

[00:34:09] actually were just very complex AI well the Bible says in Psalm 14 that the fool

[00:34:16] says in his heart there is no God we’ll have time to break this up in this segment I would but here’s real it

[00:34:21] really where is they use their god-given ability to reason to reason that God does not exist they can’t have the

[00:34:28] reason without God but they have the reason and they say well God doesn’t exist that’s why they’re the fool

[00:34:33] because they need the god-given ability to reason to be able to reason that God doesn’t exist and we could break this

[00:34:40] now more there’s a way I usually argue from the laws of logic well I want to do this I want to I want to talk this out a

[00:34:45] little bit further for our listeners and I think this is an interesting conversation so we’re gonna be right back stay with us my guests today are

[00:34:52] dr. Anthony Silvestro and pastor Andrew Rappaport and they’re guys who are very

[00:34:58] well informed about the gospel sharing the gospel and being able to prove that

[00:35:05] creation is true and also presuppositional apologetics I want to recommend the book on the origin of kinds simply because you know they’re

[00:35:12] the heart of these guys is discipleship is hey we want to raise up other leaders to be able to effectively communicate

[00:35:18] amen man so stay with us we’ll be right back [Music]

[00:35:37] how can you live in San Diego and miss out on enjoying the water Fastlane

[00:35:43] kayaking sells popular Hopi cat kayaks that you pedal not paddle that means your hands are left free for fishing and

[00:35:50] fun just throw these on your roof rack they’re light and they’re easy to use and maintain just rinse them off try one

[00:35:57] free on a demo ride for 36 years Ron and Debbie Lane have served San Diego with

[00:36:02] fun family-friendly watersports of all kinds learn more fast lane sailing dot-com six one nine two two two zero

[00:36:10] seven sixty-six

[00:36:19] [Music] hey thanks for being with us today

[00:36:25] really appreciate you hanging out here after the fourth of July and this is

[00:36:30] educate for life radio I’m your host Kevin Conover my web sites educate for life dot o-r-g you can go onto my

[00:36:36] website there’s all kinds of classes that you can take that will prepare you to be able to share the gospel and I

[00:36:42] have some like-minded individuals in the studio with me today and so dr. Anthony

[00:36:49] Silvestro and pastor Andrew Rapoport we’ve been talking about presuppositional apologetics and using

[00:36:55] it just talking to a family member or whoever might be so help us out pick up where we left off on the last day so

[00:37:00] this is the way it usually works on the street Yoos deal with someone who comes up and says well you know they don’t believe God exists you’re gonna you’re gonna

[00:37:07] talk about the immaterial things that physical matter can’t create like say the law of logic and they’ll they’ll say

[00:37:13] because they have no other choice they’re gonna say the laws of logic are the product of a human brain okay let’s

[00:37:19] let’s flesh it out before there were humans we both agree there is a time before humans you think millions years I

[00:37:24] think about 6,000 years but we both agree there’s time before humans right yes okay let’s take the second law of

[00:37:29] logic which is the law of non-contradiction technically stated you can’t have a and not a at the same time

[00:37:34] same way explained a different way so we can understand it you can’t have twenty dollars in your wallet and not have twenty dollars in your wallet at the

[00:37:40] same time the way you could have monopoly money and I’m speaking US dollars you could have had twenty

[00:37:46] dollars but you don’t now that that’s the same way or that the same time sucha all ask the question could the universe

[00:37:53] have existed and not existed in the same way at the same time before there is a human brain now they’re stuck they have

[00:38:00] one of two choices they can say no which then proves that the laws of logic are

[00:38:05] not the product of human brain requiring some immaterial source that’s universal and absolute outside of themselves that

[00:38:12] would be god that’s an interesting argument or they’re gonna say yes which they’re allowing for contradictions in

[00:38:18] which case you tell them they’re wrong they say no I’m right and you say no you’re wrong no I’m right no you’re wrong and you can’t disagree with me

[00:38:24] because you’ve already agreed you allow for contradictions now if you feel you’re right and I’m wrong it’s only

[00:38:29] because you’re living in my worldview and not your own so either way they’re stuck that’s good okay so it’s really this drug

[00:38:36] I’ve had what this is just getting people to the point where their mind is starting to wrap around these concepts

[00:38:42] because I don’t feel like art I don’t know if it’s our educational system or whatever doesn’t place a heavy emphasis on logic and thinking clearly

[00:38:48] would you agree with that I would I think it’s because people are heavily steeped in post-modernism in relativism

[00:38:55] yeah and a steer a story that I’ve shared recently is whenever I’m on a college campus and I have a college

[00:39:00] student which is every time I’m on a college campus by the way yeah tells me that they don’t believe that truth exists they don’t believe in

[00:39:07] absolutes that the warrior truth is your truth my truth is my truth right the whole pop post modernist mindset yeah I

[00:39:12] asked him who taught them this and they’ll tell me well we’ve got professors that teach this and I asked

[00:39:17] him this question do your professors give you letter grades on your papers the same professor who’s telling you

[00:39:25] truth doesn’t exist is giving you an absolute letter grade standard based on

[00:39:30] your answers yeah yeah do you not see the issue here that’s a little bit of hypocrisy there that’s right yeah I know

[00:39:37] none of life runs like that but so so guys before where we wrap things up here

[00:39:43] I just wanted you to be able to share with our listeners a little bit more about what you’re doing and if they opportunities for them to get involved

[00:39:49] with what you’re doing or to support you or maybe to be trained to get some

[00:39:55] discipleship for themselves well to get involved I mean all the information is that striving for turned out Oh RJ okay

[00:40:01] I’ll let doctors vestro talk about some of the seminars we do but we we come in to churches that’s what we look to do we come in to churches to to build up the

[00:40:08] church so we leave but they’re still there equipped we do in a lot of different ways we do it through seminars

[00:40:13] we do it through our conferences that we run we do it through are striving for an academy which is a free Academy people

[00:40:19] can take online we do it through our podcasts podcast is a grown way of teaching yeah and we so what we’ve done

[00:40:26] is a way of disciple is we’re deciphering podcasters we have the Christian podcast community at Christian

[00:40:31] podcast commune orgy we have about like 1015 podcast now and when I get back to New Jersey we’ll have like five more to

[00:40:38] add but I have several podcasts I have and I hate the names corny but he’s the

[00:40:43] one that gave it to me I have stuck with it my name is Andrew Rappaport he decided to call it the rap report so

[00:40:48] it’s andrew roberts rap report I like it it’s wrapped with cheese I had to change it to two peas because people

[00:40:54] were emailing us we share the gospel a lot in there and this has nothing to do with rap music keep this thing all right you’ll hear some better than rap music

[00:41:01] but but the thing is is we’re going to deal with biblical applications and interpretations the things in the Bible

[00:41:06] things and culture we’re going to deal with issues now I have a longer one I have a Monday for peeler like devotionals I do a Monday through Friday

[00:41:12] two minute daily or feel like those shorter type things yeah I’ll go through but I’m just getting ready when I get

[00:41:18] back I’m gonna start recording on going through each of the judges in two minutes I’ve gone through every book of the Bible giving an overview of every

[00:41:23] book of the Bible in two minutes oh that’s great went through all the attributes of God so things that are gonna help people in their study of God’s Word yeah I do for folks like

[00:41:30] yourself who love apologetics maths like from Carmen org and I do a show every Thursday Night Live called apologetics

[00:41:36] live and that’s one of our podcasts that that I host and then I have um I have one called so you want to be a podcaster

[00:41:42] which I think the name gives away what it is it’s less training our podcasters in our community yeah and so are effective and all yeah

[00:41:49] because this is the thing if you go look if you look at the in religion and spirituality which is the number it’s

[00:41:55] twice as large as the next largest category in iTunes you look at the top ones you’re gonna get Joel Olsteen

[00:42:01] you’re gonna get you know deep rock troca you’re gonna get joyce meyer you

[00:42:07] have to go way down before you get anyone solid yeah and we want to change that we want to get Christians so here’s

[00:42:12] our model with the Christian podcast me social media is all about self-promotion we want to train people to promote one

[00:42:18] another rather than promoting themselves as we think it’s Christian it’s crazy idea promoting others more than yourself

[00:42:24] you know but that’s what we’re looking to do it’s it’s a way of working with each other to make everyone else’s

[00:42:30] podcast better making each other have better content we’ve we’ve been able to do discipleship through that’s how we do

[00:42:37] use the airwaves but one of the big things we do is come in to churches and our monthly supporters allow us to do

[00:42:42] that and even into smaller churches that’s what we target we target small churches that can’t have yeah big-name speakers come in or do conferences or

[00:42:49] seminars that’s that’s the church we like because we can go in and give them you know and it’s actually better cuz you work a little bit closer and I’ll

[00:42:56] let dr. I’ll talk about some of those yes so there’s three speakers for strive for eternity myself pastor Andrew and we

[00:43:02] have another one pastor Mullis Frank is really interesting he comes in and talks about how to guard

[00:43:08] your church against pedophiles and other sexual deviants I guess would be the

[00:43:14] word for it you might need to explain his background to why he deals with that why he’s a counselor he’s a gorgeous

[00:43:21] leading expert right one of the leading experts on sexual abuse oh wow yeah right see so unfortunately most churches

[00:43:28] they don’t recognize they have a problem until the problem has occurred and

[00:43:33] they’ve had a number of kids being abused within the church yeah so Frank is developing some some programs right

[00:43:39] now and how to come into your church and guard against this that’s great because it’s a whole lot more than just getting

[00:43:45] a credit check and a back yeah yes and there’s a lot of legal implications there too so that’s a big deal

[00:43:50] that’s right and in today’s culture it’s more important than ever before well what shocked us was when Frank said that

[00:43:55] about 90% of the people that get you that you’re gonna catch on a fingerprint it’s a first time offense in other words

[00:44:03] they’ve already committed multiple offenses long before yeah Yeah right so so Frank speaks on those topics

[00:44:10] pastor Andrew his his number one requested topic is is on hermeneutics so

[00:44:18] Bible interpretation made easy and there’s a number of pastors who have taken his course in which they would

[00:44:24] have had it before they went to seminary hermeneutics is such a huge issue today because this is a big part of the reason the church is going off in these wild

[00:44:31] wild directions and wild tangents is just because of a lack of basic hermeneutics that’s right yeah and then

[00:44:37] Andrew also has developed some wonderful biblical evangelism trainings so we can come in to churches and train people on

[00:44:43] how to do evangelism whether they want to do open-air or they want to learn how to walk through

[00:44:49] one-on-one conversations or if they just want to learn how to sit back and pass out tracts or sit back and pray right

[00:44:55] and you guys are all equally important exactly we’re probably the most important of them all and then I used to do creation science you know seminars

[00:45:03] until he came in he take it over it’s obviously now I do the creation seminars and I speak on all the creation

[00:45:10] topics that are major topics out there as well as lay level priests up apologetics so what we’ve really

[00:45:17] enjoyed seeing with both my book as well as pastor Andrews books is that they’re really written for even a middle

[00:45:23] schooler to understand and there’s a number of families around the country that have used either one or or two or

[00:45:29] three of the books in disciple in their wives and their kids in this material

[00:45:34] that’s really great so that’s that’s been wonderful for us the other thing that I’m doing right now is I’m also

[00:45:41] working with Mike riddle from creation training initiative who used to be a speaker with Answers in Genesis and where his heart has been for years and

[00:45:48] where mine is where pastor Andrews is is to be able to come in to local churches and teach people how to teach so Mike

[00:45:56] and I run seminars that are three days long where people that come in have already read books they’ve already got a

[00:46:03] lot of the information they need but they’re gonna come in and we’re gonna teach them how to be effective teachers

[00:46:08] how to use voice inflections how to use hand motions how do you stage the way

[00:46:15] the information is presented within there within their seminars we want people to be able to come in and learn

[00:46:21] before they walk out at the end of the day we want to build a trained teachers

[00:46:26] in how to do this stuff so when somebody comes to one of our courses half the time is actually gonna be spent giving

[00:46:33] presentations where we’re grading them on how to give the presentations and how

[00:46:39] to improve on their presentations so they can take this back to their own church and be able to teach others

[00:46:44] properly that’s so great yeah I really love that aspect that emphasis you guys

[00:46:50] are placing because you might have somebody who has a heart to be able to share they really love apologetics they

[00:46:56] love sharing the gospel but they’re scared definitely afraid of standing up in front of people and and you know

[00:47:01] teaching and that’s so neat that you guys are doing that and so if they if they want more information on that they

[00:47:06] go to striving for eternity or striving for eternity org and if they want the actual one-on-one training that we do

[00:47:12] over the three-day period that will be creation training dot org okay so you guys are kind of partnering with Mike

[00:47:18] riddle and everything he’s doing too it’s correct that’s Fantas there’s there’s no one better at that than Mike Rowe yeah yeah I’ve heard he makes

[00:47:24] people do push-ups and stuff are you guys gonna do that to make people do push-ups you know I I’m not as mean as

[00:47:30] Mike oh yeah so instead of push-ups I told him that I’ll make people run laps since I’m a

[00:47:35] soccer coach okay there we go yeah he’s got the military background right so yeah that’s right and do not tell him

[00:47:41] that he used to be a Marine because once you’re marine you are always right that’s right well guys we’re about out

[00:47:48] of time here so I just really want to thank you for being on the program today and you guys have got flights tomorrow

[00:47:53] out of here or is that right yeah yeah okay step back to New York tomorrow oh thanks thanks for having us on it thank

[00:47:59] you really it just goes so quick when you have like-minded kindred spirit yeah it’s easy easy to have a conversation

[00:48:04] this is what Heaven’s gonna be like yeah exactly for a lot longer that’s right yeah so guys again if you want to check

[00:48:10] out this book it’s on the origin of kinds you can get at striving for eternity org and thanks again guys for

[00:48:17] being on the program thank you for having take care did you miss part of today’s program don’t worry work hon mitad to helping

[00:48:25] you get the info you need okay that was dumb but for real visit educate for life con

[00:48:30] for podcast and video recordings of the show and to sign up for the school of unshakable faith leave us your comments

[00:48:36] compliments questions or concerns at 800 243