The Eric Metaxas Show - Tom Gilson

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

Tom Gilson explains the truth behind his encouraging new book, "Too Good To Be False: How Jesus' Incomparable Character Reveals His Reality."

Eric McTexis show with your host, Eric Mettaxas. Hey there, folks. I'm still in the great state of California, still staring at the magnificent Pacific Ocean. It seems surreal, but they tell me it's not. They tell me it's an actual ocean. Today is Thursday, and today both of my producers are indisposed with family issues. So it's just us chickens. And I have stuff to share that I'm so excited about.

I got to just talk fast. And first of all, my guest in this hour is Tom Gilson. He's written a book about Jesus. Have you heard of Jesus? It is astonishing. It's the kind of thing, I think, if you're not a real believer in Jesus, like this would be an amazing book for you. Speaking of books, my new book is atheism dead.

I am doing tons of media around it. I've just been very busy. I want to say that I don't know if it was Amazon or Barnes & Noble or both, but they bought up so many copies of the book that the smaller retailers aren't getting their copies. So if you haven't yet gotten your copy, that's why. It's kind of crazy. We want you to support the smaller retailers. Let me tell you also, please sign up for the newsletter.

There's stuff that we're communicating with you. all the time that I can't do on this program. So go to EricMetaxis.com. Please sign up for the newsletter. Please. Ericmitaxus.com, please. Thank you. Today, I don't think we're going to be able to do Ask Metaxus because my producers

are not here and because I'm in California and there's so much going on. So I apologize for that because that's really fun to do every week. I did, I just finished doing a Dinesh DeSuzza podcast. What a riot. When you can impress Dinesh D'Souza, hitting on all cylinders, and my book actually impressed him. He said he learned all kinds of stuff,

and I thought, that makes me very, very happy. So anyway, we're talking about my book, is atheism dead. Last night, I was in Marietta, California, Marietta, before that I was in San Marcos. Tonight I'm speaking in San Diego, speaking this weekend in Thousand Oaks. If you want to know all the dates,

and they're being added virtually daily, a new date, a new country. You have to go to my website, Eric Metaxus.com, where it says speaking. It gives you everything that we know up to that point. But it's almost daily because as people are discovering this book, they're saying, yes, we'd like you to tell us about it. In hour two today, we're talking to Michael Gillen. Before I tell you the really exciting thing of what happened last night at this wonderful church, in Marietta, California.

I have to tell you, you remember we're doing a fundraiser with ADF. Well, here's some amazing news. We have outraged all the other Salem hosts, the bums. How dare they let me beat them? I've got a smaller program than them. We're just kicking it. When I say we, that would be you.

That's not me. That's you. You have been generous. And let me tell you, being generous to the lines of freedom is simple wisdom, folks. They are helping Americans. If you have a problem with religious liberty, somebody says to you, hey, if you don't get the vaccine, we're going to fire you.

And you say, well, I've done my own research. And it's American. It seems to me like not a wise thing to get that. And they say, we don't care. You're fired. You can go to ADF and you can say, excuse me, I am one of the impression based on research that abortion was involved. in all three vaccine lines.

I have a moral issue with this. That's religious liberty issue, folks, but we need to fight in the courts. ADF is doing that. I want to ask you in the last couple of days of this campaign, if you haven't yet given, please, please, please, go to metaxis talk.com. That's our radio website, metaxis talk.com.

You'll see the banner. You can give monthly. If you give monthly, it really adds up over the year. you know, if you give $20 or $100 monthly, $50, whatever it is. It really adds up. Get your kids involved. This is an American thing. We need to support religious liberty.

Our government at this point is working against religious liberty. That's really bad. So we do need your help. Alliance Defending Freedom. Go to Metaxistalk.com. Even my employee, Katie, she gave me permission to talk about this. Her husband, Brian, faced a situation like this. They went to Alliance Defending Freedom.

And again, for free, the lines of defending freedom gave them magnificent advice for free, except it's not free. You have paid for that. Anybody who gives the lines of funding freedom is making it possible for people who are really going through it to get the best legal advice imaginable and oftentimes actual legal help that goes beyond mere advice. Okay, I have to tell you this weekend, I'm speaking in Thousand Oaks. That's Rob McCoy's church. We're putting all this stuff online.

If you miss it, I spoke the other day, where did I speak? Wichita, Chattanooga. I'm starting to lose it. Holy cow. Well, no, actually, I spoke inland here in California at an extraordinary church. And that 1030 service was, I think, one of the best summations of the story of his atheism. dead. And it is a sermon. It's not just to talk. But you get all this stuff if you subscribe to the newsletter at Metaxus at Ericmetaxis.com. We send this to you. You don't have to go looking for it.

And then you can share it with friends. And I want to say to you, please share this stuff with your friends. You know, since we got canceled from YouTube, we really need your help. We flat out need your help. Share this stuff. Share it on social media. Okay, now to the ultra happy news. Many of you know that with Tim Raglan, I wrote three books. Donald brings the swamp. Donald builds the wall and Donald and the fake news. You can get all of them at my store.com at rock bottom. Really great prices if you use the code Eric.

Well, a few months ago, I was here in California. A family, the Villa family came up to me. Ruben, Jennifer, Joshua, Kalinda, and Nathan. By the way, Joshua, Kalinda, and Nathan are the kids. they're so cute, I could scream. Colinda, the little girl, built, made a Donald the Caveman doll. She made a doll, and she gave it to Charlie Kirk. Why would she do a thing like that?

Well, you know, she's a little girl. She doesn't understand how hurtful that would be to the author. So when she turned eight, which was recently, she said, you know what? Maybe I should make a Donald the Caveman doll for Eric Mattax is the author of her book. And last night, the whole family showed up, and they are even more cute than they were a few months ago. And if you're watching this on video, are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, Donald the Caveman, this is so, I was so touched. You know, these families are so lovely.

And this is why, if you get to come to book signing, it's such a joy for me to meet all of you. This family, I can't tell you, but I meet so many people. And it's just wonderful. I have a picture of the family from the last time we were together when they teased me with the Donald doll that they didn't give to me. And now, of course, that's Kalinda. But they gave this to me and I just thought, I can't get over this. Like, you know, happy I am to have this thing? Very happy.

If you want to get Donald books, you can go to my store.com. By the way, if you don't want to patronize like, you know, the big retailers, go to my store.com. that's Mike Lindell's website, my store.com. Almost all of my books are the Mugsy books, all of my biographies, everything is there. Very good prices. You have to use the code Eric. I ask you to do that. And also, if you go to Frank Speech, there are some amazing deals there right now.

If you use the code Eric, they will apply to you as well. So that's Frank Speech. Or you can just go to MyPillow.com. I also want to mention nutrometics. Folks, I take their stuff every day, every single day, vitamin D, vitamin C, all kinds of stuff that we should be taking anyway for our immune systems. Remember our immune systems? And I want to say if you go there and use the code Eric, they give you a great deal. And 50% of their profits go to missions organizations.

Can you imagine this? Can you imagine this? Anyway, so today we have Michael Gillen. We have Tom Gilson. Check out my website, Eric Mataxis.com. Sign up for the newsletter. I'm going to be all over the country.

I hope I can see you in person. And don't feel obliged to give me one of these because I already have one. That's why I'm so happy. Thank you. Hey, folks, I've got to tell you a secret about relief factor that the father, son, owners, Pete and Seth Talbot, have never made a big deal about. But I think it is a big deal. I really do.

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You know how I love to have them on the program? he's brilliant. Anytime John Zmirak strongly suggests I have a guest on, what do you think I do? I have the guest on because Zmirak knows more about these things than I do.

And I just say, thank you, John Zmirich. John Zmirich was telling me about a guy named Tom Gilson, who's written a spectacular book called Too Good to Be False. It is about Jesus by John's estimation, in John's estimation, it is brilliant. And I am really thrilled to have on the author,

a book that John Zmirach raves and raves and raves about. Tom Gilson, welcome to this program. Well, thank you, Eric. It's great to be here. Listen, if John Zemarik likes you, you've got it made. You can just retire right now. You're done. It doesn't get better than that.

Well, he's got his opinions. and, you know, I think a lot of them are right. He's got his opinions. Just to give some background on you, you're one of the editors at the stream, and of course, John writes every day for the stream.org. Also, you have worked with the Discovery Institute. I'm the biggest fan of the Discovery Institute. What do you do at the Discovery Institute?

I'm podcast editor. So behind the scenes doing the tech work, but also sometimes on the air, too. as well. I don't think I've ever been on a Discovery Institute podcast, but anything the Discovery Institute does is great. Their books are great. Their authors are great. Their fellows are great. How long have you been with the Discovery Institute? I've been doing this three or four years. And one of my missions at the Discovery Institute has been, as I've listened to the atheist talking about intelligent design and the Discovery Institute, they keep talking about how mean and

stupid and liars and bad people they are and I'm trying to find the one who is haven't succeeded yet there aren't any there so it's it's a good group to work with it's it's a great group okay now tell us again the subtitle of your book it's too good to be false and the subtitle how Jesus incomparable character reveals his reality and the idea there is that, yeah, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I've heard about this, you know, that you can't make up, there's no fictional character. There's nobody in history or even in fiction that compares to Jesus.

He's an anomaly. He's a paradox. The human mind, seems to me, could never come up with a character like Jesus. And it seems to me that's roughly the thesis of your book. That's right. And it's empirically provable in the fact that no one has come up with anything. No genius, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Gerta, none of them. No one has come up with the character with specifically. I am talking about the character of Jesus. Skeptics will talk about, they see parallels between the story of Jesus and other dying and rising God stories. None of those parallels are not what they're cracked up to be. When you look into it, them. But they're talking about plot points. What I'm talking about is the kind of person Jesus was. And the kind of man that he was is completely without parallel, without compare, without any other instance. And if anyone like him in all of literature, for his goodness, for his consistency,

well, I've got a whole book's worth of it. So you wrote a book on this subject. It's called Too Good to Be False. who's the publisher? DeWord Publishing. Okay, now, what prepared you in a sense to write this book, or where did you get the idea to write this book? Because it strikes me as a very, very ambitious, difficult thing to write about. Were you a literature major in college? Oh, no.

Christian your whole life. What got you thinking about this? I've been a Christian since college and a reader and someone who thinks a lot about apologetics, someone who thinks a lot about Jesus. But a lot of things have entered into this. I joke with people about how I've lived more lives than a Buddhist. I've done everything from recording, engineering, to strategic planning for a major mission organization. In that strategic planning, one of the things that I did along with my partner, he and I would go into these different sub-ministries. was different divisions of Campus Crusade for Christ, as it was called at the time.

And we learned that in order to understand what was going on, one of the questions we had to ask is, what is not here? What are we not seeing? And I took that question to Bible study in a way that I don't think anyone else has done. I've never seen it anyway, where the question I asked of Jesus isn't so much, what does he say, what does he do? But what does he not say? What What does he not do? Specifically, when you compare him to other great men or women in history or literature, how is he different from them? And he differs from them in some incredibly important ways that really make his character stand out. There is no one like Jesus in his authority, his use of, and particularly his self-sacrificial love. That's the one that.

that I wrote about maybe eight years ago. Someone said I really needed to develop it further. Took me a long time to get there because it was hard to do. What was the book that you wrote about back then? That wasn't a book. That was an article in Touchstone Magazine and it was called the gospel legend. And it was about the topic of what became the first chapter of the book, which is the unusual self-sacrifice, the self-sacrificial love of Jesus. And it came out of, after I started thinking about this, I took this to different groups in Christian conferences. And I said, let's do an exercise.

On one whiteboard, one side of a whiteboard, we're going to write down the names of all the really powerful people you can think of in both history and literature. Right there is a crazy idea. In history and in literature. That is a very interesting thing. We're going to talk about. It's a very broad scope.

And people invented by literary genes. That's right. Yep. And so they'll name everything from, you know, Genghis Khan to Thainar. And then we get a long list. It tends to go along. And then I ask on the other side of the whiteboard, I start writing down, tell me all the people you can name.

name and we're leaving the Bible off the list for a while just to prove a point. Tell me all the people you can think of who are very other centered, very self-sacrificial, very giving. And they'll write, they'll tell me to write down names like Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, Martin Luther King. St. Francis. My favorite one was mom. But, and then I say, let's look at these lists.

What do you notice about them? They are very, very different. And the point of this is that you don't find anybody in history or in human imagination who shares those two qualities of being very powerful and very good. And then I say, you know, we haven't been talking about the Bible so far, but let's say we can add someone in from the Bible. Can you think of anybody in the Bible who was, according to the story, very powerful and very good? Well, Jesus doesn't just stand out.

He rises so far to the top. He is, you know, Superman flew through space. Jesus created space. He was more powerful. Well, obviously, to be clear, when you say powerful, because the sacrifice we can understand and how he lived. But when you say power, what do you mean? I mean, you're assuming that we buy into the idea,

which of course I do, that he was God in the flesh. Right. So that's an important point. No, I'm not assuming that because the other feature of this is that we are treating it for the time being as a story. And we're comparing the story with other stories. And in the story, Jesus has incredible power all the way up to being the creator, according to the story. So let's just call it a story for now. And the story says he could raise people from the dead.

He could heal all kinds of illnesses. He had power over demons. That's pretty powerful for a story. But the story also says that he came to Earth willingly, voluntarily to die. Some people will die on purpose for someone else. But it's different with Jesus. If I were to die on purpose, maybe to save my wife, to save her life, I wouldn't be choosing to die.

I would just be choosing how to die. In other words, I don't have to die. have a choice whether to die. Jesus had a choice whether to be born, and he had a choice whether to die. His sacrifice was as ultimate as it could possibly be. So what we have here is someone who is incredibly other-centered. The thing that really got to me when I studied in this, and it just drove me to my knees in worship, was when I realized that he had all that power, and he never used it for his own benefit. Satan tempted him to when he was hungry. And Satan wasn't wrong. And he said, you could make bread out of these stones. Hang on a second. We're going to want to go back to that.

We're going to go. We have to go to a break here. Folks, we will be right back. The book is too good to be false. Tom Gilson, the author. Stick around. Hey, folks, Eric Metaxis here. Joe Biden and the Democrats have laid out the most socialist agenda our country has ever seen. Instead of following President Trump's blueprint that had the economy booming. The Dems are going to raise taxes, increase regulations, and skyrocket an already outrageous national debt. If your retirement is in traditional investments, it is in jeopardy. Americans should be diversifying their investments with gold and precious metals. Gold gives you control over your wealth and protects you from market volatility, inflation, and a weakening dollar. When investing in gold, I turn to legacy precious

Metals. Legacy Precious Metals has over 40 years of experience in helping Americans protect their finances, and this team is prepared to patiently consider your own personal financial needs. If you're looking to invest in gold, call the good folks at Legacy Precious Messure today at 866473-6204 or visit them online at LegacyPMinvestments.com. Don't leave your retirement to chance, friends. Contact Legacy Precious Metals today. That's 866 473-6204. Folks, I'm talking to Tom Gilson. John Zimirak raves about his new book, Too Good to Be False.

It's about the character of Jesus. Again, tell us what the subtitle is. Too Good to Be False. Oh, Jesus. Incomparable character reveals his reality. So you were just talking about, well, just continue from where you were because it was a very important point. Yeah, the point is that Jesus never used his incredible power for his own benefit.

This is without compare. You know, Abraham Lincoln said that nearly every man can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. And you never find anyone in history or in literature who is utterly other-centered. Bonhofer called him the man for others, and boy, was that true. He was in everything he did, it was for other people, not for himself, all the way up to his death and his resurrection. That's, I've been a Christian since 1975, and I've known since then that by doctrine, it was okay, it was acceptable to worship Jesus. But when I realized how much other centered he was and how much more than I am in particular, my work.

my worship turned from a doctrinal okay to an existential necessity. I couldn't help but fall to my knees and say, you are my God. So much better than me. So much better than me. If you don't understand that, see, that's the whole thing. It's like I think that evangelicals of certain stripes have made it an intellectual assent. And if it's only intellectual assent, you really have to question if it's real, if it counts. if you don't, if your heart doesn't break for who he is and what he has done, do you get it?

Do you really get it? And there are a lot of people that their hearts don't break. They're not familiar with that side of it. Maybe it's because they think of him as all powerful and they forget that, no, he may have been all powerful, but he allowed himself to suffer torture and death. It did. That he allowed himself to be vilified. He allowed himself. It really is so beautiful.

It's kind of, on some level, it's almost the definitional picture of beauty. The definite picture of agape love, a selflessness that breaks your heart. The fact that he was a young man who gave his life. There's so much to it that it is heartbreaking. And you're saying as you study his character, you find him to be genuinely unique. Yes. He is unique in his authority. He's the one person in the Bible who spoke for God and spoke as God. He didn't say thus, says the Lord. That's one of the things he didn't do. The crowds, it says at the end of the sermon on the mount, says the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he spoke as one who had authority, not as their scribes do.

The scribes would quote one another the way we would put footnotes in a book. Jesus said, you've heard it was said, but I say to you. And he said, don't think that I've come to abolish the law on the prophets. I've come not to abolish, but to fulfill them. Imagine Eric going into some church as a guest speaker and saying, hey, don't worry, folks. I'm not here to abolish the Bible. Yeah, that'd be like standing at the foot of the Rocky Mountains with a pickaxe saying, yeah, don't worry, I'm not going to chop the whole thing down. You know, now, where there was something about Jesus.

Wait, no, what you said, it's rare that I hear something that I just have to stop and say, well, I've not heard that before. I've not thought that before. That is tremendously radical that he has the clarity to say, I'm not here to abolish the Bible. had said this. In other words, he is clearly adding to the Bible. He is clearly exiting it with an authority that is equal to the Bible. That would be blasphemous if you were not God. If you're not God, he did it, though. And for another one, if you have heard this one before, Eric, I want to know it, because so far I've come up empty on the question. Another thing that's not there in Jesus, his life. There is no mention anywhere in the Bible of him having faith in God.

Okay, I read that in the notes for your book. Yes. And that really struck me as well. I'm glad you reminded me. That is correct. In other words, I've never heard that. And as I think of it, it is correct. The idea of him having faith in God. So what are we to make of this? I mean, he knew he was God. But he often said things and did things from a kind of humility, you know, to be baptized, to say there's no one good. Why do you call me good? There's no one good but God.

That might imply in certain interpretations that he's not God. But you're saying that he never did talk about having faith in God. Why do you suppose this is? And it is significantly missed. You know, sometimes silence doesn't mean something, but this time it does because he taught faith more than any other virtue. I think what it means is that all the way through, he's just living as God. It doesn't make sense for God to have faith in God. It's not that he lacked trust.

I wouldn't want anyone to think that he was short on trust in the father. But it's more like it's the wrong word. Like, you know, do I trust? I'm in good enough health to say this. Do I trust that I can, you know, scratch my eyebrows? The answer is yes. In normal conversation, does anybody say, well, I have faith that I can scratch my eyebrows? It's just the wrong word.

And I think in Jesus case, he knew the father so intimately more than I know that I can scratch my eyebrows. What is it in your life that you think, actually, we're going to go to a break. We'll be right back. Hey, folks, you've all helped build my pillow into the amazing company it is today. Mike Lundell has an amazing offer for my listeners on his standard my pillows. You'll get a standard my pillow regularly 6998, now only 1998. You'll also receive deep discounts on all my pillow products such as my pillow towels, mattress topper, my slippers, and so much more. Go to my pillow.com and click on the radio listener square to receive Mike's standard my pillow for just 1998 or call 1-800-977 and use promo code Eric. My pillow's made in the USA with a 10-year warranty so you know it's going to last and a 60-day money-back guarantee so you have nothing to lose. It's time to start getting the quality sleep we not only want but need. Go to mypillow.com or call 1-800-978 3057. Use promo code Eric to take advantage of Mike's special

offer on his standard MyPillow. That's MyPillow.com promo code Eric or 1-800-9783057. MyPillow.com promo code Eric. Folks, I'm talking to Tom Gilson, the author of a book called too good to be false. It's about the character of Jesus. John Zmirak has raved and raved about this book. And as I hear Tom Gilson talk, I begin to understand why. Tom, what is it about the way you perceive things, if you can comment on it, that enables you to see some of these things? Because it does seem strange when you have many, many, many thousands of books written about Jesus. We don't really hear these kinds of things. have they just occurred to you across your life?

What is it that you think makes you the kind of person that sees these things? These are vital and important and profound but original. I don't know. That's the short answer. I don't know where some ideas come from. My best guess, I was talking with my partner in the consulting work that we were doing once. And I said, I was a music major in college, played trombone. not using my major anymore. And he said, oh, yes, you are. You think different from other people.

So maybe it's the musician. But other than that, no, I don't know. Well, you did say, not on this program, but you did say that you have read a lot of the books, maybe 19th century authors, who sort of thought along these lines, but no one ever talks about that stuff anymore. And so maybe it's your job to resurrect some of this thinking. It could be. Yeah, and those books were recommended to me once I started working on this project, and I said, is anybody else written on this? And I had friends who could come up with it, but the most recent one was in the 1920s. And that was specifically on the argument for the historicity of the Gospels that flows out of Jesus' character, which is, I guess, an original argument here. What is that point? Although it's been done a long time ago. But which book was that from the 20s? There was one by, I'm going to have to come up with the names now.

And I'm the best author. Yeah, I'm losing it now. It doesn't matter because you made my point is that you thought of this stuff on your own. And then people led you to some of these folks who thought along somewhat similar lines. But it's just an amazing thing. Do you mention these books in your book, the new book, Too Good to Be False? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do rely on them a lot because they say something so very well about the, you know,

basically the how could how could this have been myth? And, you know, Eric, if you look at how the skeptics think that the Gospels of Jesus came to be, you know, how were these stories produced over time? and then finally written down in the four versions that we have. The version that they have, in short, what I call is a story scrambler. They think that the disciples were bummed at Jesus' death. And so they, through a process we call cognitive dissonance reduction, they invented a resurrection, which is a kooky thing to start with.

It's an invention meant to salvage their bruised egos. And from there, they spread a story around the whole Mediterranean region. Bart Arman, an uber skeptic, talks about how his telephone game going fourth, fifth, 19th hand from country to country, in context to context. And he says, what happens to stories? They change. And I thought, well, that's true, but boy, is that an understatement? That's not how you get stories changed.

That's how they get corrupted, distorted, totally mangled. And the story of Jesus, you know, they say, well, we're not sure they agree on how many angels there were at the tomb or whether Jairus sent his servant to have Jesus heal his daughter. Those are little things. The character of Jesus is as not mangled as any character in all of literature. How did that happen? That's awfully good word for those telephone game players. This is the thing is that this kind of literary criticism of the Gospels is,

very hard to find and it is very important. I've done a little bit here and there in my new book, I do a tiny bit of it, but it really is valuable because, you know, we're talking about literature. The Gospels are literature. And then to look at them as literature to say, what is this? How do we read this? Why do I take this literally? How do I compare them? And you get a lot of like fussy textual criticism, but to look at it more holistically, the way we used to read literature before, you know, critical theory came in and deconstruction and all this stuff. When you read it holistically, when you read Hamlet as though it was just a beautiful play, a beautiful poem, great literature, that's a little bit of what you're doing and that's what's been missing. And it really does give you a different angle on Jesus and on the scriptures, which I think is vitally, vitally important.

So it's almost strange that you're practically unique in approaching it this way. But I guess I'm just glad that you exist and you've written this book because it really is vital to look at it this way and to try to be logical and to say, how do you get a character? like this. What is this? Let's let's let's look at this and try to figure this out. Are there any parallels in history? I mean, I think the flat answer is no, nothing. Nothing like them. No. No. And it's again, one of the things that I really loved about writing this book is I really enjoy Christian apologetics, helping people understand it's true. I really enjoy studying Christ. And it's really fun to put them both together in one study. It made it a really, it was a hard, it was a hard book to write, hard to structure,

hard to know what to leave out, hard to know how to order it. It was hard work, but I love doing it. Well, if you try to make up the character of Jesus, it really doesn't make sense because you would have him do other things. You wouldn't have him do it. The only crazy person who's, you know, the only crazy person. who would do what he did, would I think actually have to be the Messiah, would actually have to be God in the flesh.

Otherwise, you wouldn't do what he did. It just doesn't make sense. I know. And someone in that telephone game would have said, oh, my goodness, he doesn't ever say, thus says the word. We better put that in there. Yeah, let's stick that in there. He never mentioned talking about faith.

We better stick that in one of these. But four times it landed, four times it landed in the same place, the same character. And I just marvel at the thought that this happened by this legendary approach. We're going to, we have a final segment talking to Tom Gilson, G-I-L-S-O-N. The book is Too Good to Be False. I think you already know you want a copy. Too Good to be false.

We'll be right back. Folks, talking to Tom Gilson, the book is too good to be false. It is about Jesus. I'm very excited to read this book, Tom. What else can we say before we go? Well, it's not just whether Jesus' story is true or whether he's great. Those are incredibly crucial facts about history and about life and about reality the way it is.

But the third part of my book, shorter part of the book, I titled Jesus No Matter What, I see us heading into a pure. in history when we are going to be challenged with the question like no one has been in the Western world. It's not elsewhere in the world, yes, where we're going to be asked to consider whether we're going to follow Jesus no matter what. And the encouragement to me in this is, first of all, he is worth following. He lived the only perfect human life ever lived. And he was very believably, very credibly, God in the flesh. And he did die for me. And it's true.

The story is true. He is worth following. It does make all the difference for history. The fact that one perfect human life was lived and that it was his and he lived it for me, I'm going to follow him no matter what. I don't know what I'm facing in the next few years, but by God's grace, I'm going to follow him no matter what because of what I know about Jesus. Well, just to continue, just that I do think people get caught up in the minutia, in the apologetics, in the in the in the aughts, you know, we're supposed to do this and do this and don't do this.

But the beauty of the story of this beautiful young man serving his heavenly father, dying, healing people, it is heartbreakingly beautiful. I think many in the church have lost that vision of Jesus. And unless you fall in love with him and let him break your heart, you're not going to live a life of gratitude to him for him, which is his goal. He wants to break your heart so that you say, Jesus, I want to give you my whole life. This is so moving.

So it's really important, I think, that you've written this book, if I may say so. It's called Too Good to Be False by Tom Gilson. The only person I can think of who has said anything along these lines, I guess it's Frederick Beakner in one of his books. I remember him commenting on something like this. That's the only time I've ever seen it. So I look forward not just to reading your book, but to finding out some of the folks who've written about this in the past. Because I think this is part of regaining, you know, for lack of a better word, a holistic view. of of Jesus.

We often have this rationalist enlightenment view, which doesn't quite cut it. It makes you say, okay, I sent to these things. Good for you. You have sent to these things. Have they broken your heart? Are you living for him? Final quick word, Tom Gilson.

He, the word that I would say, even the skeptics, you only get one shot at life and you can make it up as you can as you go along, or you could follow a really good example. There is no example like Jesus. Follow him, learn from him, and you can't go wrong. And all God's people said, amen. Tom Gilson, a privilege to speak with you.

Very excited about the book. Folks, get a copy, please. Too good to be false. We need to get this side of the picture. Too good to be false by Tom Gilson. And a big thing. Thanks to John Smirak for the wonderful recommendation. Tom, thank you so much.