Pray to Jesus or the Father? Who Wrote the Bible?

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a

couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun in

practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Friday with

the Bible Guys.

It's so good to be here.

It is.

So we're shooting. We're shooting these episodes, and we're on

the last one for this week. Yes, and this whole time,

your wife has been blowing up your phone.

She has just said that bird started. The reason why

is because technically we're shooting this on a Wednesday. Yeah,

and I have a small group in a couple of hours.

So my wife is saying, Hey, we're buying pizza. I

need two bags of ice when you come home. Don't

forget this, do this.

And then it was so also it was multitasking during

this episode, is what I'm saying. Yes, he's putting together

shopping list. I gotta get ice or Liz is gonna

be mad at me. So, Hi, Liz, I just want

you to know Chris is being very dedicated to making

sure he's getting prepared for By the way, for a smallgret,

are you doing small group this week? We're not. I'm

traveling too, Okay.

So the uh so, last week was you on video.

You oh yeah, yeah, me and Bony, but.

This week is myself on video. So I'm going to

be teaching the group and then I'm gonna say, hey,

now watch this video and be Liz and I and

I feel pretty weird about that.

I did it in the in January, you know, the winter.

This semester that we did, I had all like, uh know,

eighteen young adults all which is so it was weird

because we put on the video of me talking and

then I'd have to talk.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's almost exactly what we have.

We have twenty one in our group. If everybody shows

yeah right, that was the same thing for yeah, and

then and then we have young adults. It's fun, It's

very fun. So we are wrapping up our series that

we promised to do, which is called Stump the Pastor.

And if you want to write in a question every

day we've been saying, please email us at info at

the Bible guys dot com, or just comment on a

YouTube page or something like that where you're able to

post comments if you have any question at all, We

would love to get there for future episodes. Good yeah,

and so we want to jump into the first question.

Sounds good to me, okay, So here.

Is the first stump the pastor question. It says, when

I pray to the Lord, is this Jesus or God?

This is by the way, Mike G. Did I already

say that?

I know you didn't, Hi, mike G.

Hi, Mike G. And by the way, I don't. It

looks like you've had a scripture reference there. But can

I tackle this one?

Oh? Please?

So this is something that I have always paid attention to.

So a couple episodes ago, during this week, we talked

about I said, I think it was on Monday, and

I actually said, has anybody ever asked you to bless

this item?

Yes?

Right, that's right, and it's I said, that's a whole

other conversation altogether.

Right.

I remember being in conversation a very long time ago

with a Bible professor and we had these great debates

in classroom, and there were several things that stood out,

and just for fun, I'll just give you one that's

not this question. Then I'll lead it to my question.

So did you know that nowhere in the New Testament

that does Jesus ever say bless this food, nor is

there any object being blessed. Right, So the Bible tells

us that every blessing has been given. So in the

Old Testament they would they would bless items, there would

be things that be blessed. But the New Testament that

has done away with because every blessing is given, and

when Jesus prayed for food, he never said, bless this food.

So therefore, if there's not blessed items, and and everything

is blessed, then that means that there is no such

thing technically theologically right as blessed food and unblessed food.

There's no such thing. So to say something is unblessed.

What did you mean by every blessing has been given?

Well, Jesus gives us blessings freely, so so there's there's

if every blessing has been given and not to mention.

Uh again, we're talking about something, a thing, whether it

be food or whether it be an object. Uh, is

there there's no blessed object in the New Testament, right,

So it's sort of two things. So Jesus, Jesus says

blessings are given freely, and then also there's no blessed objects,

so there's there's there's nothing that's unblessed and blessed. So

those two things combined, and actually three things combined.

I think, what do you mean by the word blessed.

Well, again, that's that's the thing we pray. We say

God blessed this food, right, indicating that it's not blessed.

Right.

And so then then the third thing combined would be

the fact that Jesus never asked God to bless any food.

Every time he prayed for food, he said thank you,

thank you for.

The food, for the food food.

Anyway, all that to say, I just remember this big

conversation in this in this uh you know, in this

uh Bible it's debate where the professor says, theologically, I'm

not going to ever really correct you if you say

God bless this food. But technically there's no such thing

as unblessed food and blessed food. So you don't have

to pray for for anybody to bless your food because

it's not unblessed. And he says, so, so playing praying

for blessed this food is actually something that uh, that's irrelevant,

and so it's and so and actually it was it's

in the category of things we pray. That's wrong, right, Yeah,

so that's what do you think about that? By the way,

it's not it's not it's it's not one of our topics.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, So I'm reading along that way

because it's it's you know, how should you pray the Lord?

Yeah?

Yeah, I think that. You know, when you're saying, bless

this food to my body is a different thing than

That's why I was asking you, what do you what

do you mean by the word blessing?

Yeah?

Yeah, it is like put your magic pixie dust on

it and make it special.

Yeah.

Well, is that what you're thinking, is blessing? I think

I think you're asking I think you're saying that from

like a Catholic perspective of blessing a thing. Oh yes, yeah,

as opposed to us how I grew up. Yeah, as

opposed to the word bless it. Blessed just means the

favor of God. That's all it means. So blessed are

you in fath favor? Blessed are the poor and spirit?

He says happy. That's what the word blessed means. When

Jesus talked about blessed, is this happy?

Well, that's not what we pray. When we say bless

the food, we don't say happy make the food, and

we certainly don't say give the favor of God on

this oatmeal.

Yeah, so I think you think that you're praying a

blessing on the food as opposed to most people say

bless this food to my body.

Yeah, yes, food period, to my body, as the application.

Gives supernatural favor to this food and to my body

in this moment, as opposed to just natural consumption of

the food. I think that's what that's that's the request.

Nothing inappropriate about it.

I've opened up a big can of worm shitting. So

so I would say I still adhere to the fact

that UH, praying blessing over the food is unnecessary and uh,

and and and I could maybe I'll come back around

and and and qualify that. And then and then another

thing was is UH. And I remember specifically talking about

UH everywhere in the New Testament and in the Old

Testament even it talks about the fact that Jesus's purpose

is to reconcile us with a relationship with our heavenly Father.

And every time that we pray, we pray to the

heavenly Father. Every time Jesus prayed, he played to the Father.

Every time that there is a prayer given, it's to

the Father, and it's through Jesus. Jesus the mediator who

stands between God and man. Right, Jesus the reconciler, the

one who brings us back to the to the relationship

that is broken in the garden of Eden, which is

the Father. The fact that God the Father is the

one who has the will for us, that's his role

and you know, in in his personhood. So I always say,

I'm not going to correct you. If you pray to Jesus,

that's not a big deal because after all, we serve

one God in three persons, God the Father's son, Holy

Spirit right trindly, so he's still God. But theologically you're

supposed to pray to the Father through Jesus Christ or

in Jesus name, because Jesus is the bringer of us

to God the Father. And then of course the Holy

Spirit's job is the interpreter of those prayers. So the

Spirit is the one who brings the prayer and communicates

the prayer to the Father, and Jesus makes it possible

for us to pray to the Father.

Yeah, So the word theologically would imply the right way, right,

this is what God commands. And I don't think that

that's true.

I didn't necessarily attach it to a command. I always

thought logically meant the theology of the belief.

Yeah, I would say biblically, because there's different theologies. That's

what I'm saying, so biblically, Yeah, yeah, that's it's not

so biblically. Yeah, I can't think of Are there any

verses that are there any prayers in the Bible that

aren't to the Father but are to the Spirit, say,

or to the to the Son.

I think the answer is no. I could pretty confidently

say me, search it. If you find one, I'm gonna be.

I'm gonna be. Yeah, well, I tie with my hat

in hand.

But I was going to say, I often will pray

to the Holy Spirit or to Jesus, which again is

not inappropriate. It's not in a prose, not forbidden, that's correct.

But what you're saying is all the prayers wind up

being directed to the Father anyways, because it's it's his will.

I'm saying that. I think prayers are intended for the Father.

I think that's what the Bible indicates in every turn

when it talks about praying, and then even when it

talks about uh again, the role of the Father is

the one that we should pray too because of his role.

Oh oh oh, no, did you find one? Yeah? Is

it New Testament or Old Testament?

New Testament?

Okay? Sure.

As they stoned him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus received my spirit.

So he did pray.

He did pray. Yeah. Well, I mean so that one's

unmistakably directed at Jesus.

Yeah. But in all defense, though, he was actually looking

at Jesus when he said it, right, So in uh,

this is not a little exception. He was looking to Jesus,

is literally standing and staring.

At but he's still praying to Jesus. Jesus. No, no, no, no,

asked my father. Okay, Jesus didn't do that here, Hey,

don't because he's standing on the right. Oh, talk to me,

talk to him right right? Uh? Paul In two Corinthians

twelve three times he begged the Lord to take away

history in the flesh. And that's the lord is. It's

in the Greek is Jesus.

That's what that means. In the Greek Lord capital l

is Jesus always.

So it says here Lord refers to Jesus.

Wait a minute, the Lord in the Old Testament capital

l is God the Father.

Yeah, but he's the King of kings and Lord of

lords in the New Testament.

Question that I'm scared to look it up. A skeptical

on that one.

Yeah, And then Revelation twenty two twenty ends with even

so come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Well is that a prayer?

Sure? What, I'm ringing your bill? Okay, all right.

So so Stephen Stephen's the is the is the monkey

in the rest the wrench?

Yeah?

Rench?

Yeah? And Rome Is ten thirteen is quoting Joel And

I think that one is pointing at Jesus. Everyone who

calls in the name of the Lord will be saved, right,

because it's in direct connection to the verses just before it,

where it says you have to believe that he rose

again and invite him to be and declare that he

is Lord. And I's talking about Jesus, that's not about

anybody else. And everyone who calls them the name of

the Lord will be saying interesting. Yeah, I've never read

it that way.

Yeah, I've always always read it. Believe in Jesus, who

the Lord said, and then call upon the name of

the Lord. Yeah, that's interesting.

Yeah, anyways in life, but I don't mean to because

I think I think fundamentally you're right. Fundamentally, the huge

majority of prayers are to the Father. It's just not inappropriate.

And it's not even poor theology to pray to Jesus

in appropriate moments, or pray to the Holy Spirit because

Stephen did, yeah, or pray to the Holy Spirit, and

so it's not inappropriate. It's just theologically consistently in the Bible.

The Father is the one from whom the will comes.

Even Jesus said, not my will, but your will be done.

Well, you know what's so interesting is how many years

have you been graduated? Have you graduated from Bible College?

What year did you graduate? Ninety ninety seven, so uh so, yeah,

so I graduated a few years earlier than that, and

so that's been over thirty years. And I still remembered

that conversation.

Yeah, blew your mind.

Yeah. At the time, I remember, I wrote.

Catholic kid, come in here and suddenly find out what what?

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, And I remember being in that

room and everybody having this conversation, and I remember thinking

to myself, and to be honest with you, even even

now as I'm saying this, I think the ammunition of

some of the students in the room most likely was

quoting Steven in Act chapter seven, right. So I remember

watching the professor rebuttal back and forth and back and forth,

and then ultimately the whole room concluded that you know

that that was you know that we were meant to

pray to God the Father. But I'm not sure I've

ever thought about it since then, because again, like I said,

I'm not the theology deep dive, you know, or Bible

deep dive, because I'm not sure that it's really mattered. No, yeah,

it's not mattered.

So that ten thirteen, this is where I got hung up.

So I didn't think of the Stephen part yep, but

Romans because I quoted every Sunday. He says, if you

confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you

believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

you will be saved. For with the heart one believes

under righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

So declaring him Lord with your mouth, it's part of that,

and then he says, for whoever calls on the name

of the Lord shall be saved. So you've defined that

Jesus is the Lord. So you're calling on Jesus for salvation, right, right.

So that is and that's indicat through prayer. You call

on you call on God through.

Any time you talk to God, it's a prayer. Yeah, Father,

son or Holy Spirit, it's a prayer. Yeah, yeah, right,

But I think it's appropriate. There been times when when

I was going to in this situation and I'd be like,

Holy Spirit, remind me of what the Word says in

this situation, give me wisdom and discernment in this situation.

And that's an appropriate thing, right, give me your spirit

to to do, because that's his job. His job is

to teach us and to remind us. That's what Jesus said.

Sure.

Right. There's been times when I prayed that the Holy

Spirit would comfort somebody who was going through pain, and

I wouldn't just send say God, you know, Father, send

your spirit. I would just ask the Holy Spirit to

comfort that person because that's what that's his job, that's

what he does.

Yeah, I think I would actually pray, Father, send your spirit.

Yeah, but he's already sent a spirit. We already have

a spirit.

No, I know that.

I'm just saying, oh, well, theologically, yeah, help me. You

doesn't have to send the spirit.

No, I know, I don't believe in spirit already here

we have all the Holy Spirit will ever get.

Yeah. Yeah, so I started there, so has a Holy

Spirit to comfort comfort them. Because if the Holy Spirit

is the one sending the message, bringing the prayer, yeah,

then you just short circuit that and he doesn't have

to get all the way there and back again. Yeah

I'm joking, he's already here. But yeah, so that's really good. Anyway,

let's go.

Back there and back. And yet I didn't even catch

it's joking.

So so uh man, I'm not trying to throw a

monkey wrench in there. I just I like that every

idea that comes up, that's a new idea to me.

I like the probit as much as possible, and the

Bible is going to prove the Bible to be honest.

I think people appreciate these kind of debates more than anything.

In fact, my son in law, who sometimes listens in

uh in Florida, he says that the most compelling times

is when we have a discussion and say like, hey,

what do you think. I don't know, I think, and

we sort of either have different opinions or sorting it out,

or it's it's us breaking down what other people think,

which is like a stump to Pastard question.

Yeah, sure, yeah, so I think fundamentally you are correct,

because the will of God is what we're praying for

every time, healing, strength, to share the Gospel with a friend, whatever, all,

We're always praying for God's will. And so it's consistent

as Jesus said, your will be done on earth as

it is in heaven. Nevertheless, not my will, but your

will be done that that's always appropriate, and the will

of God, the Father always comes comes to be. And

then Jesus is one who fulfilled the will of the Father,

and the Holy Spirit's the one who who empowers us.

I almost forgot. We have another Bible question.

Yeah, stump pastor, Well, so finish that question though. What

was that question?

The first one? Yeah, when I pray to when I

pray to the Lord, is this Jesus or God?

Yeah? Okay, yeah, so yeah, that's it. So when you

pray to the Lord, you are praying to Jesus, And

what you're saying is it's Jesus would pray to the Father,

and that's mostly how all the prayers would go, would

be the Father. But it's not inappropriate to pray to

the Lord.

Okay. And then the next question is who put the

Bible together, not just the authors, but who decided which

book would go where? Wow, holy cow, Now you said,

I remember one time being in your office and we

were having this conversation and you had a really good

insight about this. So I'm just going to hand this

to you to tackle it, and I'll chime in, Okay,

because I could. I could definitely hang with the best

of them. When it comes to the Bible says over

twenty six hundred times it claims divine inspiration of itself,

and three thousand, eight hundred and eight times it talks

about how even though it was written by human authors,

it was not from any No origin of the scriptures

came from the human author right. It was God breathed

through yes, yes, And they were actually distinctively writing the

words of God. And it actually claims to be the

God breathe or God's breath or the very words of God.

So I could definitely hang on that end.

It's hysterical. I had some notes for this one, yeah,

and my iPad just went dead. Yeah, so let's do

it this way. So what he's asking is, I'm assuming

he believes the Bible is God's word, But how did

we get it right? Because you're right, the Bible affirms

over and over and over again that we're not hearing

from men. We're hearing men bring God's words that God

gave to them. So that's a big part of it.

The thirty seven books of the Old Testament were established

four hundred years before Jesus. That the rabbis and the

top leaders of Israel had sorted through all of the

books and they had certain requirements with regard to how

do we know if this is validly from God? Is

it inspired by God? And those thirty seven books were

established four hundred years before Jesus. And that's what we

would call the Old Testament. It's what the it's what

is the Hebrew Bible. And by the way those were called,

those were called the Lord's It thirty nine. I'm sorry

what I say? Seven, Okay, I I have my notes

in front me. Yep. The thirty nine books yeah, you're right,

because there's twenty seven New Testament books, right, So the

thirty nine Old Testament books those were called in the

four hundred years before Jesus, they were called the Law

and the Prophets. That's what they were called. So they

didn't go around calling talking about the Bible. Right, the

Hebrew people, the Israelite people, the Jewish people did not

say so were studying the Bible today, they would have

the Torah, that'd be the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Sexis, Viticus,

numbers in Deuteronomy. They would have those books. They've talked

about the Torah everything else. They talked about the Law

and the Prophets, and it was their phrase. So when

Jesus is teaching, Jesus knew about the thirty nine books

that all the rabbis taught from that they referred to

it as the law in the prophets. When they come

to Jesus and they say, these lawyers come to Jesus

and say, Jesus, what is the most important commandment from God?

Jesus's will love the Lord your God with all your heart,

always saw all your mind and all your strength. And

the second is just like it, love your neighbors, yourself,

and these two commandments fulfill all the law and the prophets.

Yeah, ya, he says, all the law and prophets hang

on these two capers.

Yes, So he says that. So Jesus not only affirms

the fact that the most important thing God wanted us

to know from those first thirty nine books is love God,

love people, but then he also affirms the validity of

those thirty nine books because he called them by what

they called them. He wasn't like the law and the

prophets and some other books right, or some of the

law and the prophets. He doesn't do that. He affirms

all of the law and the prophets. So we can,

under the authority of Jesus say the thirty nine books

that had been established in the Old Testament are legitimate.

Jesus views those of God's words. Those are God's words.

So then that leaves us with the twenty six or

twenty seven books in the New Testament. There were a

few different rules. All of them were written between forty

five AD and one hundred AD. So from Matthew to Revelation,

everything that Paul wrote, Mark Luke, John Jude James, the

author of Hebrews, They Peter. All those books were written

between forty five AD and one hundred AD, and they

were already being circulated among all the churches. The churches

were using them. There were other books floating around, but

for the most part, it was these and the rules

that they established in that first one hundred and fifty

years of Christianity. Was was it written by an eyewitness?

Was it written claimed to be written under the authority

of the Holy Spirit, the inspirational Holy Spirit? Does it

have an apostolic connection in some way, the Apostles being

Peter James, John right, the Disciples Paul Also, does it

have some connection directly to an apostle? Mark was not

an apostle, but he was Peter's secretary, right, So you

have that. So was it connected to the Apostles? And

then did the Apostles affirm the other writings? Did they

quote from them, did they refer to them, did they

teach them? Or did the apostles initial group of disciples

quote them? So that gets you within one hundred years

of Jesus right, If the disciples of the Apostles are

quoting these other books, and what's really a phenomenal is

before the two fifties. We can recreate from the writings

of the ancient church fathers. We can recreate almost the

entire New Testament from their own writings quoting the New Testament.

But the New Testament was not codified these twenty nine

books only until three forty I think it was three

hundred maybe at the the the Council of Carthage. I

should look that up. It might be two forty ad.

Let me look it up. The Council of Carthage. And

the Council of Carthage is when they determined, okay, these

twenty nine books three ninety seven ady, and it was

in what is now modern day Tunisia, and they got

together and they determined all twenty nine or twenty seven

books of the New Testament. They verified, yes, we still

believe in the thirty nine books of the Old Testament.

And they were able to rebuild all of this. And

you can do it even apart from the Bible. You

can redo it, rebuild it from those first disciples, after

the disciples, quoting each other's books. And so this is

one of the things that you could recognize that they

recognize the scripture. It's interesting. Paul refers to some of

Peter's writings as scripture, right, so even at that point

they were recognizing it. So some people would say, oh, well,

the Bible wasn't codified until the Catholics did it, and

you know the Council on Ica or whatever, Well they

did it before that, and at the Council of Carthage,

and then they'll say, oh, it was men that made

these choices. All they were doing was verifying whether or

not all of the earliest believers, the walkers with Jesus,

believed that these other writings were truly from God, and

that's what they did. So then when you it'll come up,

like if you ever watch on the Discovery Channel or something,

they say, oh, what about the Gospel of Mary Magdalene

or the Gospel of Judas or whatever. There are no

historical references to those until hundreds of years after they

were claimed to be written. And yet within less than

one hundred years of Jesus, within sixty years of the

Book of Mark being written, they were already verifying that

that's the Book of Mark. And it's hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of years later, hundreds of years later before

you get to anything like the Gospel of mag Magdalene,

Gospel of Judas, and those books were widely disregarded even

by the first people who had a chance to see them,

let alone the earliest apostles never saw them because they

didn't exist. So that's my little speech on that. If

you were wondering, yes, sir, I remember that cover what

you were thinking about it was yeah.

Because you have a lot of knowledge when it comes

to that, and I knew that you sort of knew that,

like I would never be able to come up with that,

and I certainly didn't. If I would have known that

that was gonna be the question, I could have certainly

researched that well.

So the here's what I say, because we've gone just

a little bit long on this. If you're curious about it,

Norm Geisler, just look up Norm Geisler's best books on

how we got the Bible. He's got one called From

God to Us. He's got a couple of others where

he really digs into the history of it. It's academic.

You're gonna have to work through it. It's pretty amazing.

And then any of the books by Lee Strobel, you

can start to dig in and he recommends, you know,

case for Christ, the case for the real Jesus, the

case for a creator, all these things. Any of those

he digs into how can we trust scripture, particularly the

case for Christ? So either of those books be great.

And then lastly, let me say, Josh and Norm McDowell

wrote a book called Unshakable Truth and they dig in

pretty deeply, but it's simple to read. They dig in

pretty deeply on how can we know that we have

the Word of God today?

That's great, Yeah, that is definitely our time. That's one

of the longest ever.

Congratulations, it's the loonest episode on a Friday alright.

In fact, if I wait six more seconds, we'll go

in the twenty eight mark. That'll be a record.

Okay, And here we go and twenty minutes good bye.

See letter