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00:00:01
Tackling the Toughest Questions (with Andrew Ollerton)
2 Playsin 20 hours
Whether it's a young person encountering the first challenges to their childhood faith, or a curious person anonymously ordering a Bible online, it can be easy to be thrown off track by stories of slavery, animal sacrifice or other tricky topics found within the Bible. Or if we're in a position to speak about the Bible to others, what happens when we're asked a question about these potential pitfalls? Here on PEP Talk, we find out about a new book by Andrew Ollerton that takes the Bible on its own terms to help address the toughest topics.
Andrew Ollerton is a theologian, pastor, author and presenter who makes complex ideas simple and relevant. Andrew lives in Wales and regularly speaks at conferences, festivals and churches and films video content on locations around the world. Andrew recently developed a new edition of The Bible Course with Bible Society and published a new book called God’s Book: An Honest Look at the Bible’s 7 Toughest Topics. Andrew also works closely with the explorer Bear Grylls. They’ve published a Bible called the NIV for Young Explorers, produced a TV series in Israel and Andrew recently helped Bear develop a brilliant new book called The Greatest Story Ever Told.
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Transcript
Introduction and Banter
00:00:10
Speaker
Well hello and welcome to a another packed episode of Pep Talk, the persuasive evangelism podcast from Solas. I'm Andy Bannister and I'm joined in the co-host's chair by my Solas colleague Simon Wenham. Simon, how are doing today? I'm very well. It sounds like we're sharing the same chair, but yeah, doing well, thank you.
00:00:29
Speaker
Well it's a big chair and you know it's very cold here in Wiltshire, so the more the merrier. That's my view of life. Absolutely.
Guest Introduction: Andrew Ollerton
00:00:35
Speaker
Well, we have a great guest for you on the ah on the podcast today. We are joined for this episode of Pep Talk by the amazing, the creative, the brilliant Andrew Ollerton. Andrew, welcome to Pep Talk.
00:00:47
Speaker
Oh, thanks, Andy and Simon. Thank you for that welcome. That felt that felt like it set me up for some great things. So i'm I'm appreciative. Yeah, that's very kind. Well, I like to set guests up so that the only way is down. that's I know, that's what I almost said. It felt like we reached the summit at the start and then the only way is dissent. But um hopefully not.
00:01:04
Speaker
Andrew, you've got one of those bios that, you know, if I just was to read it out, we'd but we'd take about half the podcast because you've done so many kind of things. You're a theologian. You're kind of a writer. You're a guy who loves the outdoors. You speak around the world. You've written a book that we're going talk about. You've written, think, called The Bible Course. You also hang out with ah the great and the good. You are mates with Bear Grylls. So many things that we could talk about. But which of those sort of sums
Mission: Making Sense of the Bible
00:01:30
Speaker
you up? If you were to sum yourself up, in a couple of sentences, who is Andrew Ollerton?
00:01:35
Speaker
ah It's always hard to do that because you actually feel like your life largely is not those things. It's taking kids to sports fixtures or, you know, fixing the tap or whatever. So I, yeah, I'm, I'm very grateful for the amazing opportunities I've had to make sense of the Bible. That's my passion. I think he's making sense of the Bible, both for Christians and for those who are curious and,
00:01:56
Speaker
Even the things I've done with Bear have been with that in mind. um you know He's a Christian and wants to share the good news of Jesus. And and so you know we filmed a TV series in Israel together. And then when we got back, he was keen to write this um book that um tells the story of Jesus, the greatest story ever told. So obviously, it's a privilege to do that kind of thing and you have some amazing experiences. But beneath it all is a deeper passion, which is I just think you know now is the time to share the Bible. It's actually trending in our culture.
00:02:24
Speaker
people are interested and curious about what it has to offer. And I love that. And so if it's video or book format or podcast like today, I'm all in. Fantastic. Well, that
Understanding Biblical Topics
00:02:35
Speaker
brings us on nicely to introduce your book, which is God's Book, An Honest Look at the Bible's Seven Toughest Topics.
00:02:42
Speaker
Just to start us off, I wondered if you could say who you're writing this for. As you said, you're very passionate about the Bible. Are you writing it specifically for Christians or seekers who might have questions about faith?
00:02:54
Speaker
I know it's a bit conflicted to say both, but that is my answer, Simon. It's a great question. I think I genuinely had the story, let me speak through a lens of the story in Acts 8 of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch.
00:03:05
Speaker
I had that story in mind because I felt like a few years ago now, actually, before things um became statistically more more evidential, I felt like God was saying to me, there are more and more curious seekers coming down the road in our cultural moments. the Ethiopian eunuch, an unlikely character to be reading Israel's scriptures, the the prophet Isaiah.
00:03:25
Speaker
And he needed Philip to come alongside him and help make sense of, in his case, a portion of the Hebrew scriptures. And I felt like I wanted to write this book, um God's book, An Honest Look at the Bible's Seven Toughest Topics, for both those characters.
00:03:40
Speaker
Philip um and Philippa, the Christian, they need to become more confident about how to make sense of some of the tough things in the Bible because they hope, I'm i'm sure many of our listeners today, we hope we sit next to people who are curious and asking questions and we want to feel like, like Philip, we can begin where they're at and actually make sense of things for them. So, I wrote it for the Philip and Philippas, the Christians, to say, let's not hide from the difficult things. It's going to come up in conversation. Let's look at these things together. And then I suppose I did also write it for the Ethiopian seekers, the curious seekers who are themselves buying Bibles. But then maybe as they start reading it, a lot of people I meet who are new to the Bible have bought one on Amazon or been given one by a friend.
00:04:24
Speaker
And they start at page one. I mean, where else would you start a book? That seems to be the obvious place. And that means you're deep into the Old
Contextualizing Bible Stories
00:04:30
Speaker
Testament, bumping into some knotty things. And I wanted this book to be a kind of guide that sits alongside the Bible itself.
00:04:37
Speaker
So whatever you bump into in the Bible, hopefully there's a chapter in this book that helps to make a set make sense of that. So does that count, Simon? I don't know. Is that too is that too much? I'm trying to do Philip and the Ethiopian in one.
00:04:50
Speaker
I'm struck by, as ah as a parent myself, I've got a 13-year-old and an 11-year-old. And just reading the Bible, you know if you're a Christian, reading the Bible with your kids and then dealing with the questions as they come up is really good. Because I think sometimes Christian kids, when they grow up and become adults, run into trouble because they haven't been exposed to the Bible. Absolutely. Even though they've raised in Christian homes. And suddenly they're like, oh my word, there's fruity stuff in the Old Testament. yeah One of our goals is my kids know that's there.
00:05:17
Speaker
I mean, those questions and challenges and you've sort of, you future proofed them. Yeah. that's that Can I just jump in on that? Just jump on that. Yeah, do, do. Yeah, I totally agree, Andy. I think future proofing is what I was hoping for with this book as well. Because I think my experience growing up in a Christian home, very grateful to my parents for a lot of Bible when I was younger. But I don't think, I don't remember ever really wrestling with the knotty, difficult bits. It was almost like we we were raised to believe the Bible is the word of God. And and I believe that.
00:05:45
Speaker
But without really stress testing that. And I think when I went to university, I really faced the challenge because for the first time there were some, if you like, almost nasty surprises of things I'd not really realized were in the Bible. And now I was facing that from skeptics, which is not really um an easy experience and often not a fair representation of the Bible itself. It's often misconstrued. So Absolutely. If I was writing this book to anyone in part, it was to my younger self to say, um and to young adults today. And a lot I'm so encouraged, actually. Lots of yeah older youth groups have been going through the book using some small group resources, um videos and discussion guides that I've also developed.
00:06:23
Speaker
And I'm hearing from them how it's just almost just bringing a maturity to their faith that they they can actually say, there's nothing in the Bible that I've hidden away from. No nasty surprises coming around the corner. We've got it all out on the table.
00:06:35
Speaker
And actually, there's a way to make sense of it all in context. Before we come to the the content on the book, I know Simon's going to raring to go with a question on. The other half of my
Cultural Interest in the Bible
00:06:45
Speaker
question I was going to ask is, can you talk to us very briefly about this data we see that young, more people reading the the Bible? Obviously, there's been a bit of sort of debate around the whole Quiet Revival kind of stuff with some of the stats not being quite right but the whole use of the bible interestingly that's a different story yeah um and i'm coming across i came across a young person of the other day last week who'd done exactly as you described picked the bible up started reading through and they got bogged down in leviticus so we had a little conversation about actually how we might do some other things first but again i'm fascinated that more people seem to just be finding the way to the bible and and reading it what what's going on there
00:07:23
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think just exactly right. And even if the Quiet Revival research that Bible Society published has been discredited, what is clear is there's two other sources of information. One is Google searches, which is, that's what we call behavioral data. And you can see the graph of, uh, searches about Christianity in the Bible, it flatlines until COVID 2020. And then it's absolutely begins to climb and it's still climbing. So behavioral data on Google searches, that there's a clear increase in interest in the Bible online.
00:07:54
Speaker
And then also, as we've heard Bible sales. So that's also behavioral data. um Bookshops are able to statistically know how many sales they've had. And there has been a significant increase. So many reports saying 134% increase in Bible sales in the UK since 2019.
00:08:09
Speaker
So we can be certain, I think, of those two facts. More people are searching about the Bible and more people are buying copies of the Bible. Why is that happening? I mean, I think there's various explanations, aren't there? You could point to just the instability of our cultural moment geopolitically and in terms of mental health crisis more personally. You can point to online influencers.
00:08:30
Speaker
You know, Arsenal have just won the Premier League. um If you're a football supporter, whether you support Arsenal or not, you can't miss the fact that the Bible's everywhere. You know, that they're having Bible studies before their Premier League matches. So some of it will be public intellectuals, Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland.
00:08:47
Speaker
But some of it's just... um mass influences, whether it's Premier League football players or podcasters like Joe Rogan. So I think there's various explanations for it, but there is absolutely no doubt in my mind. And what is really exciting, I've got to say, I don't i think there's nothing more enjoyable than an hour spent with a curious seeker who's new to the Bible asking questions. It's so honest. They're not being difficult. They're like that Ethiopian eunuch. They're not being difficult. They're not wanting it to be disproved. They
Seven Cultural Topics and the Bible
00:09:15
Speaker
would like the Bible to be true so often, but they just need a bit of help. And I love that.
00:09:22
Speaker
If you are a regular listener to Pep Talk podcast, we're wondering if you would be willing to do us a favor. And it won't cost you anything. We're asking if you'd be willing to pray for the ministry of Solas. Every week, Solas speakers crisscross the country, doing evangelism, sharing the gospel with people outside the church, and training and equipping and encouraging Christians to share their faith. And we really need your prayers to be able to do that effectively.
00:09:45
Speaker
The best way to pray for Solas is to sign up for our prayer letter. Jump over to the soless website Solas and at the bottom of the page, there's a button that says newsletter sign up. And every month we will send you prayer requests and information about the ministry of Solas. It's your prayers that turn our busyness into fruitfulness, and we'd love it if you would join in.
00:10:11
Speaker
so In your book, you cover what what you might say, sort of seven themes, science, slavery, violence, suffering, miracles, sex, hell, and and other topics around those. Why have you chosen to go in on the sort of that cultural angle? Is it simply that's what you were seeing? You mentioned your own background. Is that what you were seeing people ask as opposed to a sort of more stepping back and doing a sort of basic Bible study or something like that? Why are you coming through those cultural questions?
00:10:38
Speaker
Well, I wanted to let the Bible itself set the agenda for this book. I genuinely did. But I also wanted to recognize I'm doing that as a culturally situated person. I say in the book, I'm not pretending that these would be the seven topics. If you were to choose seven topics in medieval England or modern day North Korea or China or whatever, you know people would come up with different topics that are depending on cultural sensibility. So these are for for our modern moment in the West. Absolutely. But it's still the Bible narrative that is trying to... I'm trying to not do what other people have done brilliantly. i don't need We don't need another book on apologetics. Andy and others have written brilliant books that are more thematic.
00:11:16
Speaker
What I was trying to do is say, if you actually go through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation, which is me staying in my lane. I've done a lot of that with the Bible course and other things. And I've noticed that when you help people see the big story of the Bible, they love it. It really is and a key that unlocks their access to the Bible more generally.
00:11:32
Speaker
They love it, but they also then bump into things precisely because you've got them engaged. They then start reading things, as you've said, in Leviticus, or you know often it's things like the conquest of Canaan, a particular moment in the Bible story itself that raises a larger apologetic issue of holy war and and violence and in God's name. So what I was trying to do is say, I'm going to take you through the Bible, Genesis to Revelation,
00:11:56
Speaker
And let's make sense of these seven topics in their context, because the conquest of Canaan was a particular moment in a larger story. It's not a blank check written for any moment or any generation. There's something unique and and particular about that. And the more you understand the narrative context, the
Challenging Topics in the Bible
00:12:15
Speaker
more you'll understand the issue that that troubles us today.
00:12:18
Speaker
um so i don't know if that answers your question, Simon, but basically I let the Bible try and sort of the narrative arc of the Bible set the agenda. but through the lens of a Western culture. I think there's some real ah some real wisdom, isn't there, in um and looking at context. I remember an analogy I heard kind of years ago. If you'd, for example, never seen the original kind of Star Wars movie, the very first one, and you walked into the room and you walked into that moment where Luke presses the button, fires the torpedo and blows Death Star up and never everyone cheers, you'd be going, what kind of like horrific movie is this? yeah This wooden acting guy has just destroyed hundreds of people. But if you know the whole story...
00:12:56
Speaker
It makes sense. But that leads me to, I suppose, a question for us in the church. Andrew, do you think sometimes one of the challenges is that we've lost that narrative, um that narrative arc? Sometimes I wonder if we flattened the Bible. You know, we lift out our favorite verses. We don't read the whole thing. And we then force for struggle to see that narrative arc. But as you say, knowing of that arc and where the question, where the difficult passage fits into it is a key. So is there ah a challenge for us in how we as Christians approach the Bible so we can then share it with others. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's spot on. I think this sort of fragmented and isolated, almost the impatient approach to the Bible that says, I just need something to encourage me now. Give me a verse, give me a phrase, give me And the the result of that is that there are just some parts of the Bible that are going to serve you better like that. The Psalms are just frankly shorter and pithier, the Proverbs and so forth. And it's no surprise that Jeremiah 29, 11, I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper, not to harm you, has become, I think, the most um searched for verse in the Bible.
00:13:56
Speaker
um But there's a context to that. you know There's 70 years of exile. There's a call to um you know so to to put roots down in ah in an exilic context of Babylon and to bless the city. And and so I think is' is' two there's two risks, really. One is when we isolate a verse,
00:14:13
Speaker
it can be misconstrued by skeptics on the one hand. So you do find that some of the most um vociferous objections to the Bible come from those who can take a verse that seems to endorse slavery and suggest that the God of the Bible is is a God of of of slavery or of violence. you know so So a lot of people will be troubled by the isolation that skeptics do.
00:14:35
Speaker
But I think what you're highlighting is we as Christians need to be careful that we're not doing a sort of reverse end version of that. We isolate nice verses from their context, like the Jeremiah 29-11, and we fail to appreciate that there's a context that actually makes that, in a sense, more challenging, more gritty, more honest.
00:14:53
Speaker
So... The big story of the Bible safeguards us from skeptics who will misconstrue it, but also from a kind of sugarcoating version of scripture, which we don't need any more of as well.
00:15:06
Speaker
and And I think the other thing I'd say is you notice that the Bible itself goes out of its way to show that the small stories need to be read in the light of a large story. You turn to the New Testament and the first thing you find is a genealogy, which really was just a narrative device, a shorthand way of saying, before I tell you about Jesus, you've got to remember the bigger story, son of David, son of Abraham. And even in our evangelism, I found this to be a very fruitful um part of evangelism. I i think of ah a young guy that I'm discipling at the moment who's just come to faith. He bought a Bible in October online, ah completely on his own, began to read it, couldn't make any sense of it, went to one church. There was no one there who would seem to have any answers to his questions. Unfortunately, I bumped into him and it's been an amazing journey and he's put his faith in Jesus. But I think one of the reasons for that
00:15:55
Speaker
is he began to see how the larger story of the Bible really resonates with his story, with his life, and the things that aren't working for him. So it's not just in the church that we need, you know, i don't i don't just mean we need sermon series on genealogies for the sake of it. I actually think it's a really fruitful way to say to people,
00:16:15
Speaker
The Bible will give you more. I mean, what happened to those disciples on the road to Emmaus? Their hearts were burning within them when he and when when he opened the big story of scripture. So we should do that as much as we can.
00:16:27
Speaker
and You have a lovely example, don't you, of why context is important at the start of your book, where one of your sons comes and tells you that he's saved the life of his other of of his brother. and Then you find out he's actually pushed him in the pond in the first place and then pulled him out so that he could try to get ah a blue Peter badge, I believe. and I thought that was just a lovely illustration of, in one sense, it is correct. He had saved his life, but obviously, if you don't understand the bigger a picture of what was going on, you might come to the wrong conclusion. and I suppose from what you've said, are there particular themes culturally that you are finding people are asking you, and or is it the the question of just everyone's different and people have different questions?
00:17:06
Speaker
I think it's interesting, actually. I've been doing some events um regionally where people the audience has been able to, after a little interview with me about the book, they've been able to vote. Which of these seven topics do you find the most challenging using Slido?
00:17:19
Speaker
and It's been revealing, actually, that... um the ones that top out nearly always will be for the old Testament, the warfare and violence and the conquest of Canaan for the new Testament, nearly always either Paul's teaching about sexuality, especially if it's a younger audience or revelation and the themes of judgment and heaven and hell.
00:17:37
Speaker
Um, So those keep surfacing. And I think that's revealing. For example, the issue of science and the creation stories in Genesis has never topped the charts. Now, I think 20 years ago it might have done, but I think what we all are aware of is that ah In the apologetics world, increasingly, we're moving from evidentialist arguments to ethical arguments.
00:18:01
Speaker
It's less about, is there factual evidence, science versus faith? and is it And it's more, is this God described in the Bible good, and the ethical issues? And that's why I think the conquest of Canaan and others keep topping the charts, yeah.
00:18:16
Speaker
That's interesting that, as you say, the questions kind of the questions kind of change over time. Also, the other thing, of course, tapping into what we're saying earlier, that that that kind of openness changes over time. um So I suppose drawing all those threads together to someone listening to this, um what kind of practical advice might you give... to somebody who wants to perhaps get get a friend who's perhaps spiritually open they're not we're not talking hostile atheists someone who's interested in spiritual things what's a great way in to encouraging someone to perhaps have a look at the bible um because then that's when the questions are going to emerge and where you can engage in this conversation but i think many christians struggle sometimes with what's the starting point to get somebody connected to the bible what what have you found helpful um in your own experience perhaps doing that andrew
00:18:59
Speaker
Well, there are three principles. um I think this is an answer to your question. There are three principles that i run through the book and that I think
Principles for Understanding the Bible
00:19:05
Speaker
are really practical tools that you can just use. And and and they they're flexible. one One of these three may be more important than the others. The three principles for for making sense of the Bible with those who are seekers make make sense of the Bible in context. in Christ and in community. Those are the three things. And I think they're helpful. So the first one is in context. think If you're going to give someone an encouragement to get into the Bible, you've got to give them a bit of context. We've just been talking about that. And that context might be simply the context of what the Bible is and the fact that it's a library and you may not want to start at page one. I often say to people who are new to the Bible, if I get a chance to speak to them before they've started reading the Bible,
00:19:43
Speaker
I do sometimes say, you know um rather than starting at the beginning, why not start at the center? The center of the Bible is Jesus. And then you can work out from the center rather than working forwards from the beginning. So there's there's a context issue. you know What is the Bible? How do I get into it? What's the backstory?
00:19:59
Speaker
Secondly, and I've alluded to this just now, in context, secondly, read the Bible in in the light of Christ. We don't just want people to feel like the whole Bible. You have to take on the whole Bible at once. It's like if they can come to know the center of the Bible, Jesus,
00:20:13
Speaker
then they will have a personal encounter and a personal experience that will then mean they read all of the other stories in the light of that. And the third thing is in community. I do think that um God has ordained it, that we we won't make sense of the Bible entirely in isolation. The Ethiopian eunuch, who I began this podcast talking about, he was an incredibly educated VIP, an elite member of the, um, of, of the, uh, of the ancient world, but he couldn't understand the Bible on his own. So there's not, it's not an intelligence issue. The guy was brilliant, far more educated than Philip.
00:20:47
Speaker
But, we you know, you won't get there on your own. And it's encouraging, I think, to find characters in the Bible who struggle with the Bible. You know, i i don't know about you. I like that. I like the fact that in the Bible, there are people who struggle with the Bible. And by the way, they they obviously didn't realize they were in the Bible, um which is also something to remind people whenever you read the Bible, don't forget that the people in the Bible didn't know they were in the Bible.
00:21:08
Speaker
um They just thought they were struggling with it. So take heart from that. But the point is you're going to need help. And I think saying it's explaining to those who are new to the Bible, you're not on your own.
00:21:19
Speaker
It's going to take time. And I'm here to help you is a relief. Thank you. Yeah, that's a wonderful, as you say, a much broader way of thinking about what we're doing and and the richness of bringing
Resources and Conclusion
00:21:30
Speaker
out the richness of the Bible. So thank you for that. I'm i'm sorry we've only really just sort of scratched the surface of ah your work and the book but specifically. where Where can we find out more about your ministry and God's book in particular?
00:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, thanks, Simon. AndrewOllerton.com is a website where all of my stuff is housed. It has links off to other sites like Bible Society who um host the Bible course, which is going brilliantly at the moment. We've just released a new edition of that, so check that out.
00:21:57
Speaker
But God's Book, um you can buy it on Amazon um or wherever you get books from. But what you'll find on my website is there's a whole suite of resources to enable either small groups to go through the Bible, ah God's book together. So the God's book, an honest look at the Bible, seven toughest topics. There's an eight session, small group resource with video content and a discussion guide. There's all free on my website. And there's actually a lot of churches are going through it in their Sunday program as well. So you can run a so sermon series.
00:22:26
Speaker
where you're basically just saying to people, in this series, we're going to get all the tough stuff and we're going to look at it and we're not going to avoid it. And people have been so grateful for that when church leaders have just said, let's go there. And they've really appreciated it. So whether a sermon series or in a small group resource context, or just with one or two mates who might be new to faith, andrewollerton.com, God's Book series, it's all there.
00:22:49
Speaker
Thank you so much. That reminded me of, I remember John Lennox saying quite a lot about one concern he has for Christians is they have professional lives that sort of they excel in, but often their knowledge of the Bible and theology languishes a long way behind. And actually, this is the kind of things that that people really want. and And it's of course, nurturing us as Christians and the church. So yeah, thank you so much for all of that. i um i must say it's it's been really helpful just to hear you just reminding us actually that we need to be careful about what we believe and why. And and I love the book because it has so many little nuggets that are really, really helpful. I came across the the flow chart, which just says, you know should you apply... Old Testament law to your lives today. And and just a really nice little diagram of sort of, oh, that's how I navigate that um that piece. So there's so many of those wonderful little pieces in there. And I think exactly as you've said, if if you're engaging with any seekers, you you know you will get them firing questions at you And so your resource is really, really helpful for showing why Christianity is relevant and how it makes sense today. And I love that piece about actually having greater confidence and looking at it in context, in Christ, in community. It's just a lovely way to remind ourselves of sort of how we should position ourselves.
00:24:02
Speaker
So thank you so much, Andrew, for helping us navigate that. i Thank you, Andy, for co-hosting. And do listen out again in a couple of weeks for another inspiring guest on the Pep Talk from Solas. Thank you so much for listening.