The Dr. Jeff Show Ep. 46 – John Lennox

Episode 46: Summary & Transcript

Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Episode Summary

In this episode, Dr. Jeff interviews Dr. John Lennox, an Oxford professor, about the relationship between science, mathematics, and Christianity. Dr. Lennox discusses his personal background, including his Christian upbringing and his time as a student of C. S. Lewis at Cambridge. He explains how the effectiveness of mathematics points to an intelligent creator and argues that the real conflict is not between science and God, but between the worldviews of theism and atheism.

Dr. Lennox shares practical advice on engaging in public discourse about faith, emphasizing curiosity over fear, drawing from his experiences debating leading atheists and traveling in post-Soviet Eastern Europe. He concludes by encouraging young people to deepen their knowledge of scripture to make an impact for their faith.

Episode Transcript

Dr. Jeff Myers (00:02):
Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Dr. Jeff Show. You can find this show on Apple, Google, Spotify, some new platforms called Edifi and Liftable, and wherever you get your podcasts. On this show, I interview major thought leaders from many fields of influence to show how our worldview changes everything.

Today on the show, we are joined by somebody from across the pond from Oxford University, an Oxford professor of mathematics, philosophy and business who has lectured extensively on Christianity and science and biotechnology and all sorts of things. He’s debated leading atheists, including Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Singer, on the existence of God. And he’s written a lot of books that talk about the relationship between science and Christianity. He has got some very practical advice for us today on how to live out our faith in the public square.

Please welcome Dr. John Lennox to the show. Dr. John Lennox, welcome to the Dr. Jeff Show.

Dr. John Lennox (01:12):
Thank you very much indeed. It’s a delight to see you again.

Dr. Jeff Myers (01:15):
Well, it’s great to see you. We met in Oxford. We had a group from Summit Ministries come over to Oxford and you were gracious enough to invite us over to New College. We had a great conversation about creation and evolution and all kinds of interesting things while we were sitting there in that historic room. It was so much fun and I have really been looking forward to our conversation today.

Dr. John Lennox (01:39):
Well, thank you. I have too.

Dr. Jeff Myers(01:42):
There’s so many projects you’ve been working on and we’re going to be talking about some new books that you have written on topics that are of real concern to people right now. Of course, one of our slogans at Summit Ministries is, if you want to be a leader, you’ve got to be a reader.

So everybody who’s watching or listening to this show right now, buckle your seatbelts because we are going to give some book recommendations from Dr. John Lennox. But we’re also going to make it really practical. And before we dive into all of that, John, I’d love to just talk a little bit about your story. You’re Irish. Tell us a little about your growing up years. And then I’m going to move from that into your time at Cambridge University where you met someone who everybody on this show is a huge fan of.

Dr. John Lennox (02:24):
Well, I had the great benefit of having two Christian parents who loved me enough to give me space to think and who encouraged me as a boy, not only to examine the Christian worldview, but to examine other worldviews. And that was a magnificent preparation for going up to Cambridge last century in 1962 when C. S. Lewis was still teaching there who had a huge influence on my life. And in that sense, I hit the ground running. I’d done a great deal of reading.

And I love your strap line. A leader must be a reader. And I was a reader from very early on and became, in my childhood, convinced of the reality of Christianity lived in my parents’ lives and in the truth of Christianity intellectually. So I was all set in that sense to get involved in witnessing to my fellow students at Cambridge because I believed that the Christian worldview had something to say to them because it was actually true.

Dr. Jeff Myers (03:35):
Now, John, at Cambridge, I want to hear a story about C. S. Lewis here, just a minute. But at Cambridge University is where you earned your doctoral degree. You studied mathematics and philosophy. And I also noticed in your bio that you have an appointment at a school of business as well. So you’ve got a broad training and a broad expertise. But tell us a little about this.

Dr. John Lennox (04:00):
Well, I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve been very fortunate. I had a brilliant mentor who’s with the Lord now, Professor David Gooding. He died a couple of years ago at the age of over 90, and he was a classicist. So he really trained me in ancient philosophy and he was a brilliant biblical scholar, so I had that.

But the business connection has come in Oxford here where the business school discovered that I had some kind of facility to lead seminars, which are based on questions in the strategic leadership program. So I’ve sat alongside some of the world’s leading CEOs and so on, and discussed the big ideas, particularly about the ethics of leadership. And I still do a bit of that.

Dr. Jeff Myers (04:51):
Oh, it’s so interesting. I would love to be in one of those seminars. It sounds fascinating. Okay. We got to talk about C. S. Lewis because when you were at Cambridge, you found out where C. S. Lewis gave lectures and you attended his lectures. You were a student of C. S. Lewis. Tell us what that experience was like, because I think most of us only know about C. S. Lewis from maybe a movie that we’ve seen or books that we’ve read.

Dr. John Lennox (05:21):
Well, it was memorable to say the least. He was a legend at his own time. These were the last lectures he ever gave publicly in Cambridge. He died the following year at about the same time. And I recall it vividly because the lecture room was absolutely packed. People were sitting all over the floor and over the windows. There were no health and safety regulations in those days. And it was freezing cold.

And when the appointed time came, Lewis, who was quite a burly chap, a bit my proportion, would burst in through the double doors and he had a heavy coat on, a big long scarf and a hat. And he would start lecturing immediately before he had settled down. And he lectured as he moved through the crowds and slowly unwound his scarf and took off his coat and took off his hat. And by the time he’d done all of that and got to the podium, you’ve already had five minutes of a brilliantly worded lecture.

(06:25):
And he went on for the requisite 50 minutes. And then at the end, he reversed the process. He just kept lecturing as he put on his hat, wound up his scarf, put on his coat and burst out of the double doors. I did my recent film with Kevin Sorbo. I reenact that scene just for people to see what it was like. So that was my memory of C.S. Lewis lecturing on John Dunn, the English poet.

Dr. Jeff Myers (06:54):
Wow. Yeah. In the film, which we were going to talk about called Against the Tide, you actually go into that room and sort of show what happened. It’s amazing to just think of that.

Dr. John Lennox (07:08):
Oh, it is. Lewis was an amazing chap. And you see, because of my background, I don’t know what it’s like from the inside to be an adult and not a believer. Lewis did. And he became my guide to what it’s like to be inside atheism, so to speak. And that was utterly invaluable to me, to say nothing of the arguments for Christianity. And of course, there’s a new film out just out with Max McClain on C. S. Lewis, which is brilliant, called A Most Reluctant Convert. And I could thoroughly recommend it. You may have seen it.

Dr. Jeff Myers (07:49):
I have seen the show. And in fact, we had Max as one of our guests on the Dr. Jeff Show. But the thing that when you were telling your story and Against the Tide, I thought, now I understand why at the beginning of Most Reluctant Convert, Max put on the hat and the coat and then just immediately began lecturing as he was walking through the museum. I hadn’t understood that other than just as a cinemagraphic or whatever it’s called, a trick. But that was actually the way Lewis was.

Dr. John Lennox (08:23):
It was, yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (08:25):
Well, I’d love to chat more about, I’d like to really approach a couple of things that I know people who are watching or listening to this program right now are dealing with. And one of them is science and God. But the other one is, I think your study in mathematics. And I wished I had asked this question when we met at Oxford and I didn’t. So now’s my chance to ask it. Is there a biblical worldview of mathematics and how would mathematics and apologetics and our understanding of God, how does that all fit together?

Dr. John Lennox (09:04):
Well, the way I view that is quite simple actually. And it goes back to an observation of Albert Einstein who was sufficiently bright to be amazed at the fact that mathematics works. And one of his fellow German Nobel Prize winners, Eugene Wigner, once wrote a mathematics paper, 1961, entitled The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics. In other words, he said, “We don’t deserve this, that mathematics describes the universe so well.”

And I’ve written about this a great deal because it’s only unreasonable if you’re an atheist. It’s certainly not unreasonable if you’re a theist, which brings me back to before Einstein’s time, the time of Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, and so on. And their mathematics, Newton in particular, and Kepler, they felt that they were thinking God’s thoughts after him and they rejoiced in the fact that mathematics helped them to describe the universe as evidence of the existence of an intelligent creator.

(10:21):
And I often say to people, the fact that mathematics works is, to me, powerful evidence that this is a word-based universe and that resonates wonderfully with the statement in the beginning was the word and the repeated phrase and God said in Genesis chapter one. So that’s the way I would approach that. It’s at a second level, so to speak. Mathematics works and it points to the fact that we are in a word-based universe. And you can add to that if you like. In biology, we see that life is a word-based phenomenon because of the genetic code. So we’ve got evidence pushing us towards the word as God, the creator.

Dr. Jeff Myers (11:14):
John, I think a lot of students take mathematics courses in the United States. STEM is very popular. A lot of students are being pushed into that because they’ll have careers in it, but I think they just view it as a process or this is something I’ve got to learn. One of my children is a grade 12 student studying physics and calculus right now. Those are his major courses.

What would you say to a teacher? We work with several hundred Christian schools and they have an opportunity to not just teach how mathematics works, but to teach it from a biblical worldview. Based on your experience teaching mathematics, what would you say to them that would really enliven students to what all of this means?

Dr. John Lennox (12:06):
Well, I think I would start to talk about the role of mathematics, beginning with what I have just said to you, and encourage them to be curious about the place of mathematics in our understanding of the world around us. That’s what fascinated me in my teenage years. Why did mathematics work?

Secondly, where does it fit in science? And then where does science fit in our understanding of reality? Does it tell us everything? And the fact is that we can connect that with the biblical view of human beings made in the image of God. God is a creator. He’s made us creative. He has built his universe in such a way and built our minds in such a way that our minds in here can understand the universe out there in mathematical terms.

So it’s to get them thinking not only how to do mathematics, which is fun in itself, but the place of mathematics, why it works, and what it has led to. And the mathematical intelligibility of the universe is one, to my mind, of the greatest evidences for the existence of the cosmic mind of God.

Dr. Jeff Myers (13:30):
Can you illustrate that or give an example that comes to mind?

Dr. John Lennox (13:35):
Well, there is the general point that I’ve just made, but if you want to go into specifics, you see, it is mathematics or rather more accurately mathematical physics that has given us the precise nature of the fine tuning of the universe. And I remember speaking to one of Oxford’s most distinguished philosophers, and he asked me to come and speak to his students. He’s an atheist, and he said, “I hope you’re going to use the best argument against atheism.” I said, “Well, I’d be delighted to if you tell me what it is.”

And he said, “If ever I were to become a Christian, the first step would be based on the fine tuning of the universe.” He said, “That is a fact and it demands an explanation.” And I think that’s very important because that is simply telling us the results of mathematical discovery that show us that in order to have life, you must have a very finely tuned universe in the sense that the constants of nature must be precise to an incredible accuracy.

(14:45):
One of our greatest mathematicians, Sir Roger Penrose, who won the Nobel Prize not long ago in Oxford. He’s a humanist. He’s not a theist, but in his book, he says the creator’s accuracy to get a universe like ours with the second law of thermodynamics in it, the creator’s accuracy has to be of an order of one in 10 to the power, 10 to the 123, which is a number so big. It’s vastly bigger than the number of elementary particles in the universe. So those results of science expressed in mathematical terminology, they’re strong pointers to the existence of the mind of God.

Dr. Jeff Myers (15:38):
Wow. And you’ve stated in a number of places, and you stated it again in the Against the Tide Movie, which we’ll talk about more in a minute, but you said the battle isn’t between science and God, that it’s about people’s prior commitments. And I want to tease that out a little bit because I know that a lot of our students are at universities where nearly all of their professors are unbelievers.

Dr. John Lennox (16:04):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (16:05):
And they’re very bright people. They know multiple languages, they’re experts in their field, and there’s this little shift that takes place where they think.

Dr. John Lennox (16:15):
Yeah, that’s right.

Dr. Jeff Myers (16:16):
It’s just not plausible to believe a biblical worldview, but explain that idea. If the battle isn’t between science and God, it’s about prior commitments.

Dr. John Lennox (16:25):
Yes. Well, this is very important. Why? Because it’s very easy to understand. And the myth that’s been spread about, particularly by people like the late Christopher Hills and Richard Dawkins and so on, is that science and God are implacably opposed to one another. And I say, look, it’s very easy to see that that cannot be true.

And I use the example of the Nobel Prize for physics. Now, in the States, you have William Phillips who won the Nobel Prize some years ago for his work in low temperature physics. Bill is an evangelical Christian. Over here in the UK, we’ve got, well, any number of names, but let’s take Higgs, Peter Higgs of the Higgs Bozon, who’s a friendly atheist. Now, those two men have reached the top of physics. Their physics does not divide them, but what does divide them is their worldview. And how I express that is it cannot be that God and science are implacably opposed.

(17:37):
Otherwise, Bill Phillips would not be a believer in God. He wouldn’t be a Christian. And the fact is that the antagonism is not between God and science, but it’s between two worldviews, the worldview of theism, belief in God, and the worldview of atheism. And there are scientists, brilliant scientists on both sides.

So the real question we need to address, which many people avoid tackling is, where does science point? Does it point towards God as I think, or does it point towards atheism as Dawkins thinks? That’s the real question. The science versus God myth is something that we fight all the time. And there are many of us engaged in trying to do that because until you get people to see that it’s not science versus God, it’s theism versus atheism, it’s very hard to discuss because people are unclear.

Dr. Jeff Myers (18:42):
I imagine a lot of students saying, “I understand the worldview battle, but I say I believe that God exists. I have 99% of my professors who are wonderful people, great teachers, they do not believe it. How can I say that what I believe is plausible, and yet all of these bright people reject it?” Do you see that?

Dr. John Lennox (19:12):
Oh, I do. Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (19:14):
The conflict these students are facing every day.

Dr. John Lennox (19:16):
I do. I see it and I feel it. The first thing is to say that that high percentage is only true locally in some places. I think it’s important for the students to be aware that belief in a personal God is at a much higher level among scientists than they would’ve imagined. It’s pretty nearly 40% in the USA of practicing scientists.

The second point I would make is that the pioneers of science like Galileo and Kepler and Newton and Babage and McElwell and Faraday were all believers in God and their faith in God didn’t hinder their science. It was the motor that drove it. And therefore, it’s just important here in Oxford, we’re very fortunate because quite a number of my colleagues do believe in God, quite a number are actually Christians. And I don’t sense that kind of pressure in Oxford. And it is very difficult for a young student who’s faced with this barrage of atheism.

(20:26):
And so I think it’s important for them to be aware, and this is where you need to turn them into readers as your strapline goes at Summit Ministries, to get a broader perspective that actually if all their professors are atheists, they’re not representative of the whole world out there. But even more than that, there are many arguments that show.

And I spend quite a bit of time these days arguing that there’s no conflict essentially between science and God, but there is a conflict between science and atheism. And in my little book, can science explain everything? I’ve tried to break that down for younger students to grasp so that they can use it in order to build up their own worldview and have answers for their teachers on these questions.

Dr. Jeff Myers (21:20):
Yeah. I think that would be the right place to start for anybody who’s asking these questions. And that’s a new book, Can’t Science Explain Everything? And where you talk about the rationality of a Christian worldview.

Dr. John Lennox (21:36):
Yes, correct. I really wrote it because some years ago, my first book, I saw it desperately needed modification and some people had said it is not really accessible. I thought of the young people that you mentioned, what would I find helpful to hear? So I put that down in the book, but I haven’t stopped with the God and science question. I’ve gone on to point out, which is very important, that one of the subtexts in the atheist view is that of scientism, that science answers everything, and therefore that science is coextensive with rationality.

If it’s not science, it’s not rational, which is sheer nonsense, of course, because history and economics and languages and literature are all rational disciplines. But I wanted to go on in the book to talk about the fact that Christianity as a historical revelation that can be experienced through faith in Christ is perfectly rational. It’s not natural science, but it’s rational and it employs the so-called scientific way of thinking that is reasoning on the basis of evidence.

Dr. Jeff Myers (22:51):
This is a huge breakthrough, I think, for a lot of people to realize that there isn’t a conflict between rationality and revelation, as they’ve often been taught.

Dr. John Lennox (23:02):
That is absolutely right, and it’s a mistake to think there is. I often illustrate this by my illustration that science is limited, Aunt Matilda’s cake. I don’t know whether you’ve come across this. The idea is that Aunt Matilda has baked a cake, and I get it examined by all the Nobel Prize winners, and they come up with a wonderful understanding of it in terms of the chemistry, of the constituents, and the physics of the elementary particles and so on.

And then I say to them, “Before you go tell me why she made the cake.” And of course, their science cannot tell them. And she’s sitting there smiling because she knows the only way they get to know why she made the cake is if she tells them, she actually reveals it to them. But now, if she reveals it to them, they use their rationality to understand what she says, even though their rational science cannot answer the question.

(24:07):
And that’s why reason and revelation are not opposed. I often say to people, “Have you ever met anybody that can read their Bible without using their reason?” That’s just a very foolish and anti-scientific way of thinking, but it is so important that we approach revelation.

I often say to people, God has given us two books to study. This goes back to Francis Bacon, the book of nature and the book of his word, and we use our reason on both, but the difference is our reason didn’t produce what’s in scripture. Our reason is used to understand what God says through his spirit in scripture, but that’s a very different thing. So there’s no opposition between the two. They’re just very different.

Dr. Jeff Myers (24:58):
I sense a lot of people feeling relief. Okay. Yes. I can reset my thinking here and then I can begin to examine the evidence that you’re talking about.

Dr. John Lennox (25:11):
Yes.

Dr. Jeff Myers (25:12):
Then they begin to think, “All right, what would this look like if I am around the water cooler at my new job? Or what would this look like when I’m in the residence hall with my classmates?” I think that’s where their minds will be going.

And I would love to ask it this way. You have debated publicly, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Peter Singer, the world’s leading atheists. You’ve been on stage publicly putting your faith forward in that situation. How do you go about those conversations? I mean, it must be scary to do it, but how do you prepare for that? And what patterns do you notice in their arguments that might be helpful to those of us who have conversations every day about this kind of thing?

Dr. John Lennox (26:13):
I go about it, Jeff, by starting small. And in fact, I’ve written another book because I’ve been asked this question a lot of times by young people. I’ve written a little book, it’s the cheapest book you’ll ever buy. It’s cheaper than a cup of coffee. It’s called Have No Fear. And it’s to encourage young people, particularly students, to get across the fear barrier, which always arises when it comes to communication. And I started with years and years of talking to individuals and small groups before I ever stepped on the stage with scary people like Dawkins and Hitchens.

And really, to sum it up, it is learning to ask people questions in order to befriend them and waiting for them to ask you a question. A driving force and motivation for my little book is the statement in the first letter of Peter where he said, always be ready to give a reason to those that, sorry, an answer to those, a defense, to those that ask you a reason for the hope that is within you.

(27:26):
And some years ago, I suddenly thought, “I have not seen before what that verse is saying.” It’s not talking about preaching, it’s talking about people asking you for a reason. Now, why would they ask me for a reason? And I found myself thinking, “When was the last time that anybody asked me?”

Now, your scenario, sitting around the cooler, is a good one for this. How do I provoke people to ask me questions? And the way I do that is by asking them questions, not necessarily about Christian things in the beginning, but to get to know them, ask them what their hobbies are, what their interests are, and then topics can come up like for example, the omicron variant of coronavirus and one can quietly say to one’s friends, “Gosh, this is quite a scary thing. Do you have anything that helps you think about it and sort it out?”

(28:33):
And very often they’ll splutter and say, “No, I really don’t. Do you?” And then that gives you the opportunity. And I’ve been doing that all my life and I encourage people that it’s much easier to ask questions and answer them and don’t feel you’ve blown it if you’re not able to answer. That’s the second major pillar because the fear bit comes. What happens if he or she asks me something I don’t know the answer to? I’ll be a failure. No, you won’t.

What you say is, “Do you know, I’m sorry, I can’t at the moment answer your question, but it sounds so interesting. Would you mind if I went away and thought about it a bit and discussed it and then came back and we’ll meet by the pool next Thursday?” Now, the effect of that is multiple. First of all, it tells the person that you don’t claim to know everything, you’re human.

(29:28):
Secondly, it tells them that you’re taking them seriously. You’re going to think about their question. Nobody’s ever done that for them before. And that immediately starts to establish a completely different kind of relationship and there is never any loss of face if you admit you don’t know. There is colossal loss of face if you pretend to know when you clearly don’t. And my little book is geared to getting people through that hump and in encouraging them that actually they can engage far more than they imagined they could before.

Dr. Jeff Myers (30:09):
What you’re talking about is curiosity. It is, yes. Replacing fear and expressing interest in other people as image bearers of God and people who think and struggle and have hopes and dreams and fears and disappointments just like everybody else.

Dr. John Lennox (30:24):
That’s exactly right. Exactly.

Dr. Jeff Myers (30:32):
I’d love to have more thoughts on that. That’s such a big part of what we do at Summit Ministries is helping prepare students for those dialogues.

Dr. John Lennox (30:41):
Well, I really am delighted to hear this because far too few people are doing this. And I like to say to young people, and I’m getting pretty old now, I’m far too near to 80 to confess that they can actually do it. And you will know that one of the greatest thrills for young people is when they see someone to whom they spoke come to faith and they learn by experience that it’s possible for people to change their worldview. That was crucial to me at Cambridge. The first person I saw after a dialogue coming to faith and I thought, yes, it actually works. It is possible.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:25):
A friend of mine went through the gospels and counted up the questions of Jesus. Jesus as a question asker, that’s not what we usually, yeah, that’s right. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a sermon on that, but he said Jesus asked 288 questions in the gospels.

Dr. John Lennox (31:40):
It is quite remarkable. That’s the model for me.

Dr. Jeff Myers (31:45):
Yeah. Let’s talk about the movie a little bit because I’ve just started watching it. I was able to get a link. I know it’s available on DVD and Blu-ray, but there is a way to get a link and we will put it in the show notes. The movie’s called Against the Tide. And it is a conversation between Kevin Sorbo, who a lot of people know because they saw a movie called God’s Not Dead. And Kevin Sorbo played the very grumpy, very persistent Professor Radisson in that movie.

But Kevin is a believer who loves to talk about biblical worldview and apologetics. And you and he traveled together. And so many interesting things took place in that conversation. But you started in Oxford, then you went to, I think, Eastern Europe, and then you went to Israel from there. Since I just got the link, I haven’t even watched the entire thing yet.

(32:44):
But where I ended, John, and what I have been able to see so far is you talking about the real life consequences of these ideas that you saw in evidence when you traveled and studied in Eastern Europe. And I wondered if you’d share a little bit about that.

Dr. John Lennox (33:02):
Yes. Well, this film is designed to communicate some of these big ideas through the dialogue with Kevin, which I enjoyed very much. And what you’re referring to is the fact that since childhood, I’ve always been interested in atheism, which is the polar opposite of what I believe. And I learned German fairly early on, and that opened up the possibility for me in the 1970s to go behind the Iron Curtain in the Western countries. That is Hungary, Poland, and principally East Germany.

And I could see atheism at work there, that it was a big preparation. I didn’t know it at the time, for meeting the likes of Richard Dawkins and so on. But when the wall fell, I started traveling to Russia and Ukraine because I had enough grasp of Russian to lecture in mathematics in Russia, and that opened many doors for me. And it was just remarkable to be there in the early ’90s when the whole breakup of the former Soviet Union was happening and people were asking loads of questions.

(34:22):
And the people I met, particularly in Siberia, they all wanted to know, yes, a little about my mathematics, but they were far more interested in why I, as a so- called intellectual, why I could or would believe in God. And that was a huge education to me on many levels. One story will illustrate it. The discussion with a very senior mathematician, and he said to me, “We thought that we could get rid of God and retain a value for human beings. And we discovered far too late that we couldn’t.”

And that was in the context of a discussion about Dostoevsky’s famous statement, “If there is no God, everything is permissible.” In other words, there’s no rational ground for morality if you don’t believe in God. And I saw that in action. And once you experienced it in your soul, a land that had been denied the gospel for 75 years, it was a wonderful preparation for talking to people who hadn’t a clue about it, like Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. So that experience in life was important and therefore we reflected it a little bit with clips in the film itself.

Dr. Jeff Myers (35:49):
Yes. The link is, the producer just showed me a note. So I know the link to the movie. It’s againstthetide.movie, and people can go there and pay a few dollars, download that movie, or I guess it just streams it, but you can watch that. First of all, it’s just wonderful to see all of the footage of Oxford and then watch you and Kevin have your conversation in the very place where C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien had their conversations in the Eagle and Child Pub. So I would really recommend that.

John, are there any other insights that you would give to the young adults who might be watching or listening right now? They’re trying to grow in courage. You’ve helped them overcome fear. You’ve helped them learn how to express curiosity. I’d be curious if you’d just give a word of encouragement to them as we close our conversation.

Dr. John Lennox (36:47):
Yes. Well, what I would encourage them to do is get to know their world as we’ve suggested, but do get to know the word. One of the great lacks, I think, around the world, in many countries I hear from every corner, is the lack of knowledge of scripture. And I learned a long time ago that it was important to get to know the word of God, not simply so that we can give talks on it or recite it, but to get to know God himself, to gain confidence in scripture. After all, it’s the only offensive weapon we have.

It’s the sword of the spirit and therefore spending time, quality time. We’re never going to reach the world by reading scripture five minutes a night before we jump into bed. It’s not going to happen. And so I was just so grateful to a mentor who at a very early age screwed me into seeing how important it was.

(37:56):
Now, the first objection that will come from the contemporary generation is I’ve no time. And I say to young people, “Folks, ask yourself how much time you spent in the last 24 hours watching a tablet or a smartphone or a computer watching things that have nothing to do with your study, nothing to do with serious reading, but just fun. And then tell me you’ve no time. You will spend time on the things you love.” And the heart of Christianity is love for the Lord and love for God.

And therefore, if we love God, we’ll read what He’s written to us. That is sheer logic and some of us need to face that challenge. And I would just say to young people, “Folks, just pause and think of what you’d like to do with your lives. If you want to make an impact for the Lord, you can, but it will cost you. It will cost you energy and input, but God will help you. And you look back on life with a sense of sheer joy at the fact that you’ve been allowed to participate in the great witness of the Lord to the world.”

Dr. Jeff Myers (39:16):
I’m taking that into my heart right now. And I know people who are watching and listening are doing the same thing. So John, thank you for not only being willing to stand strong for your faith, but being willing to help use your life and your witness to explain things that people sometimes find confusing and ultimately for the way you personally live it out in such a human focused, personal way. Thank you.

Dr. John Lennox (39:49):
Well, thank you too, Jeff, for what you’re doing, because it’s vastly important. You are reaching people that I can’t reach and may the Lord empower you to do what you’re doing for many years to come. Thank you so much for having me on.

Dr. Jeff Myers (40:04):
Thank you, John. Special thank you to my guest today, Dr. John Lennox, from Oxford. You can find his books and resources on johnlennox.org. I’m especially going to encourage you to pick up the book, Can Science Explain Everything?, a very straightforward book and everyday language that will be really helpful for you to defend your faith. And then take some time, get family members together and watch the movie we talked about in the show Against The Tide with Kevin Sorbo. Look at againstthetide.movie to find the link to that.

Everything we’re focused on in these shows is for preparing a rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview. So if you would, please share this show with people you know and love. We want to have it be encouraging to a lot of people and inspiring in the times in which we live. God bless you and I’ll see you next week.

(41:03):
Hey everyone. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dr. Jeff Show. It’s a podcast from Summit Ministries, summit.org. Summit is a nonprofit ministry that exists to equip and support the rising generation to embrace God’s truth and champion a biblical worldview.

For nearly 60 years, Summit Ministries has been training students and those who work with students to develop, deepen and defend a biblical worldview through life-changing conferences, thoughtful church, homeschool and Christian school, curriculum books, free online resources and more. If you want to live out a biblical worldview in today’s world and you desire to instill a lifelong faith in the rising generation, visit summit.org/thedrJeffshow for more information.

Listeners, I want you to know that our podcast is on Edifi, which is a truly powerful app that brings together thousands of the best Christian podcasts in one place. For your listening enjoyment, you can download it at edifi.app.

(42:07):
Be sure to share this show if you have enjoyed listening to it and leave a review, if you would, on the site where you download the show, that helps more people know about the Dr. Jeff Show, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next week.