Apologetics 101 How to Do It, How to Teach It

Apologetics as the Defense of the Faith

All right, well, I've been missing in action for quite some time, so I haven't put out a video in a while, and things have been really busy on my end, so I figured I'd do something tonight, something a little light, but I think is important nonetheless, and so the title of this video, as is obvious from the thumbnail, is Apologetics 101, okay, and so what I want to do is I want to take the opportunity to do a little teaching with respect to kind of the basics of apologetics and the basics of theology, so as we know, that these two kind of are, they go hand in hand, right, Jude chapter 1 verse 3, Jude tells us that he found it necessary to contend, earnestly contend for the faith once for all delivered, so that which we are contending for is the faith once for all delivered, which is comprised of the body of Christian truth, so we are defending theological claims that we believe are true, right, so we're in essence trying to defend the truth of the Christian faith, so when we're doing apologetics, understanding theology is going to be very important, so I'm going to talk a little bit about theology, a little bit about apologetics, and hopefully it'll be useful to you, and again, there are a lot of videos out there that cover this topic, but again, we're going to keep things light, and we'll see what happens, all right, so I am a teacher, if you guys kind of know a little bit about my background, I teach 11th and 12th grade, which is a fun grade to teach, that age group is a lot of fun, but I have taught theology, I don't teach theology and apologetics currently, but I have taught theology to middle school and high school students, and so I think it's very important that when we're teaching apologetics, and we're teaching Christian theology, that while it's true that we need to lay kind of a foundation, we shouldn't water things down, it's very interesting that I've observed that parents and teachers prepare young people to get into like these top-notch schools, and so there's rigorous testing and assessments and things like that, and then when we're doing theology in the church, or maybe there's a Sunday school or something, things tend to be really watered down, and so it doesn't make any sense, right, we encourage rigorous thinking in one sphere of life, education, and then, you know, sometimes it's the case that rigorous thinking is not encouraged when we're in church, we're just kind of listening to a sermon, things tend to be kind of presented at kind of that surface level, and so what I've learned is that when teaching theology and apologetics to teenagers, you'll be surprised how much they're able to grasp.

I remember subbing at a public school, and the students had finished all of their assignments, and so I remember while I was subbing, I was actually going to seminary, and I was at Liberty, and I remember sitting at the desk, and the kids were kind of just chilling out, it was the last 15 minutes of class, and I remember I had homework for one of my classes in seminary, I was like, oh man, I have homework, and the student in the front row said, you have homework, you're still in school, I'm like, well, yeah, he's like, well, where do you go, and I said, well, I go to seminary, and he said, well, what's seminary, okay, now working in a public school, you're not encouraged to share your faith, but if someone asks, there's opportunity for interesting conversation there, so I explained to him what seminary was, and so he recognized I was a Christian, and then, of course, that conversation led into, well, how do you know there's a God, right, you know, how can we believe things that we can't see, and I was able to go right there on the chalkboard, and a couple of, you know, a bunch of students were, you know, crowded around the desk asking questions, and I was able to kind of share my faith, and I remember at the time, I went through, I think, like a cosmological sort of argument, or something like that, and and he got it.

I actually met this student a year later when I was at the gym, and as I was, you know, embarrassingly trying to bench press, which you can't see me, I'm not super in shape, but as I was lifting weights, this young man comes to me, and he says, hey, you don't remember who I am, maybe you do, but you were a sub for my class last year, and I remember that you did this thing on the board where you tried to prove that God exists, and ever since you did that, I couldn't get this idea out of my mind.

I'm wondering if you could help me find a church. So again, it was kind of complicated. We kind of went in depth, and he was able to understand it, and it was able to be useful to him, such that he had it on his mind, and it, there was opportunity later to kind of see the fruit of that.

So all that to say, when we're teaching theology and apologetics, don't be afraid to go in depth. Of course, there needs to be a foundation laid, but you know, you'd be surprised how much young people are able to grasp, right?

I think we kind of undersell them sometimes, underestimate them, so we don't want to do that. All right, so again, Apologetics 101, so let's kind of define our terms, okay? Especially, I'm hoping this video is going to be helpful for people who maybe don't know what apologetics is, and they're saying, hey, you know, I want to know what this is all about, and maybe this can be kind of a foundation for going in a little deeper, and perhaps at the end of this video, I can, I could suggest some books and maybe some videos that you might find useful moving on from here.

Positive and Negative Apologetics

So okay, so apologetics, what is apologetics? Apologetics is, it comes from the Greek word apologia, and it literally means to make a defense. It can refer to a verbal defense, making a speech, a formal speech in defense of some proposition, a reasoned statement, or an argument.

Apologetics can mean anything along those lines, so all of us are somewhat familiar with apologetics in that all of us have at some point given reasons and arguments as to why something is true or why something is false, right?

So if you were caught by your parents doing something, or maybe, you know, you were accused by your parents, you know, that they're accusing you doing something, and you give an argument to vindicate yourself, you are in essence doing apologetics, right?

You're making a defense for a certain case. Now Christian apologetics is kind of the same thing. We are making a defense specifically of the Christian faith, okay? Now again, if you're just tuning in and you don't really know about this stuff, I mean, I never heard of apologetics until I was like in like in like high school.

I never knew there was a thing where, you know, you could actually demonstrate the truth and defend, you know, the key elements of the Christian faith. I wasn't aware of that, so there are a lot of Christians who just aren't aware of this field, right?

But when we're talking about the defense of the Christian faith, we're talking about the ability to defend the truth claims of the Christian position, and a lot of people are shocked to hear that because when we talk about the Christian faith, we're talking about what?

We're talking about the Christian faith. It's faith, right? So there shouldn't be any talk of reason and evidence and these sorts of things, but in reality, Christianity is reasonable. Christianity has evidence, and as many people who follow my channel, I think that Christianity provides a very important foundation for all of those things.

It creates a foundation for, you know, logic, reason, you know, science, all these sorts of things. So again, so Christian apologetics means to make a defense, to make a defense of the Christian faith.

Now, one second here. Let's see here. Okay, so again, the term apologetics, which comes from the Greek word apologia, is actually found throughout the Bible. The word apologia, I think, appears around eight times in the New Testament.

So the term is a biblical term. Acts chapter 22, verse one says, brothers and fathers, listen to my defense, right? That's that word apologia, right? And first Peter 3 15, of course, is the famous apologetics verse, but sanctify Christ as Lord of your hearts and always be ready to make a defense and apologia to everyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that's in you, yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

That's actually a very important apologetics passage that I want to kind of spend some time on. But again, Acts chapter 25, verse 16 says, to them I answered, it is not the custom of the Romans to deliver any man to destruction before the accused meets the accusers face to face and has the opportunity to answer for himself, to give an apologia concerning the charge against him.

And first Corinthians chapter nine, verse three, Paul says, my defense, my apologia to those who examine me is this, and then he kind of hits the ground running, right? Now, the interesting thing here is that in Hebrew, the word for examine used in the passage I just described is the word anachrono, which means to examine or judge or to investigate, examine, to inquire into, to scrutinize, to sift a question, especially in like a forensic sense of a judge to hold like an investigation, to, it could have the sense of interrogation, examining an accused witness to judge of, estimate, determine the excellence or defects of a person or a thing, all right?

So again, the examining and the defending, these are kind of biblical categories and we're called to, you know, be able to do these things, right? Now, let's kind of move back to first Peter chapter three, verse 15, because this is a super important passage here.

It says, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts and always be ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that's in you, yet do so with, do so with gentleness and respect.

Now, the reason why this passage is so important is because there's so much to unpack there, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, right there, there's just rich theology to be found there, to sanctify, to set apart Christ as what?

Lord in our hearts. Now, when the Bible uses the term heart, it almost never is referring to the organ in your chest. The heart, biblically speaking, refers to the center of one's being. It is, it is the mind that, that the seat of the intellect, that go, that aspect of the intellect that goes into decision-making.

Christ must be the Lord of our minds. That is the prerequisite for the always being ready. Well, the passage also says always be ready. And what is necessary to always be ready is that we're always going, undergoing a process of preparing, right?

That's very, very important. So, we're always to be ready to make a defense to everyone. It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's a family member, whether it's a teacher, a professor in a college classroom.

If the situation calls for it, the Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 3 15 is telling us that we need to be ready to what? To make a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. Okay. And how are we to do this?

According to the Apostle Paul, we are to do it with gentleness and respect. All right. Now let's move on here. So, there are kind of a couple of aspects to the apologetic coin, so to speak. When we do apologetics, there can be what we call positive apologetics and negative apologetics.

Okay. We have positive apologetics, negative apologetics. Well, what does this mean? When we're engaging in positive apologetics, we are putting forth arguments and evidence for the truth of Christianity.

We are presenting a positive case for the truth of our position. And I won't go through these arguments now because it'll go, I'll be here for a very long time. But when we, when one hears positive apologetic arguments for the truth of Christianity, traditionally, especially within what we call the classical camp of apologetics, you'll typically hear arguments such as the following.

The cosmological argument, okay, which is a family of arguments. You have the argument from causation trying to demonstrate in some way that God is the cause of the universe or he's the unmoved mover, these sorts of things.

There is the teleological argument, which are typically arguments from design, which we could from design infer a designer. There are moral arguments, arguments from objective moral values and duties.

And that we would argue that in order for, you know, objective morality to be the case, it needs to be grounded in a standard, an ultimate standard, which we would argue, you know, is God as the law giver.

Okay. The foundation of the moral law. We have historical arguments for the resurrection. This is typically focused, focused on within the apologetic methodology known as evidentialism. So there's a very strong emphasis in evidentialism upon the historical evidences for the resurrection as being evidence for the existence of God, truth of Christianity, these sorts of things.

We have arguments from biblical inspiration. This was very much a part of the biblical apologetic. People in the Bible would appeal to prophecy. Jesus appealing to his miracles as that which vindicates the teaching that he's bringing.

Right. So you have that kind of positive element to apologetics. And then you have negative apologetics. Negative apologetics is really, I think between positive and negative apologetics. Negative apologetics, I think, is what intimidates a lot of people who are just kind of getting started in doing apologetics.

When you're doing negative apologetics, what you're doing is you're answering objections lodged against the Christian faith. Right. This is kind of associated with like, you know, hey, man, if I, if I engage with the unbeliever, what if they ask me something?

I don't know. What if they bring up an objection that I've never heard? And usually this is something that gets people a little bit nervous and timid about kind of engaging with unbelievers. Okay. So when you're doing negative apologetics, you're answering objections, and these objections can come in any number of ways.

You often will find attacks upon the consistency of the Bible. So there'll often be claims that the Bible has contradictions in it. Right. You know, how many animals did Noah bring on the ark? Was it two or two of each?

Or was it four? You know, how many women were at the tomb? One gospel says it was this many women. Another gospel says it was that many women. You see the Bible's filled with contradictions. You also get the famous, you know, how can a God, how can a good God allow evil in the world?

Right. Or there'll be attacks upon the coherency of the Christian God. How can the doctrine of the Trinity be coherent and how the Trinity seems like a contradiction? Hasn't science disproved God? Issues like that.

Hasn't evolution disproven biblical creation? These sorts of things we can categorize as negative apologetics because we're, we are answering objections. Whereas the positive is we're offering a positive case, right?

So you kind of have the different aspects there. You have the offensive and the defensive elements there. I mean, it's important to kind of know how to navigate the specifics of that. Okay. Now, knowing what apologetics is, okay.

Knowing that the Bible uses apologetics, knowing that there's positive and negative aspects. We asked the question, why should we do apologetics to begin with? Okay. And that's a fair question, right?

Okay. I get it. There are, you know, there are these class of Christians who like to debate and argue with, with the local atheist or maybe the Jehovah's witness at the door on the Saturday morning. Why should we do apologetics at all?

Okay. Well, first the Bible commands it. Okay. In Jew chapter one, verse three through five, which I alluded to earlier on in the video here, it says this, here's what Jude says. He says, beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude says that for him, it was necessary that we contend for the faith. Okay. If Jude found it necessary because he had to address specific issues in his context, I mean, how much more should we find it necessary?

Because there's oftentimes where we need to speak into a situation in which we need to vindicate the Christian, uh, the Christian faith when it's being attacked, right? And when it's called to sit there and just take it right, we need to be able to speak into those situations and with gentleness and respect, navigate those conversations.

So we should do apologetics because the Bible commands us to do apologetics. And of course, first Peter three 15, right? We're always to be ready to make a defense to anyone who asks us for the reason for the hope that's in us yet doing so with gentleness and respect.

Um, it's also important to point out that Jesus himself, uh, did apologetics and Jesus often appealed to fulfilled prophecy, right? Mark 14, 61 through 62, Luke 24, 44 through 45. We, we see Jesus appealing to fulfill prophecy.

Jesus performed irrefutable, uh, miracles of healing, uh, Matthew 11, uh, verses two through five. And of course we learned in Corinthians 15, six and other places, of course, the centerpiece of the Christian faith, which is the resurrection of Jesus, right?

And the resurrection of Jesus, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus is what the new Testament points to that vindicates, uh, the teachings of Jesus. It vindicates the identity of Jesus as a God in flesh, right?

It is the, the miracle of resurrection that shows us that God, right? Um, approved of Jesus, right? Because God raised him from the dead. And of course, Jesus will also come back at a future time to judge the world, right?

So we have this in the book of Acts as well. Okay. You also have examples of the apostle Paul doing apologetics. He often debated with Greek philosophers. You have the famous, um, Areopagus address in Acts chapter 17 verses 22 through 34, even quotes, uh, some of the Greek poets.

So he kind of uses, uh, you know, some of the thinkers, uh, within the pagan context to kind of make important, um, apologetical points. Okay. Um, in Acts chapter 17 verses one through three, we're told that Paul reasoned with the Jews in the synagogues.

Okay. He, um, he dialogued with them. He interacted with them. Um, in Galatians, the whole book of Galatians and first Corinthians, Paul is addressing and responding to false teaching right now. And this is interesting because, um, he's addressing false teaching that is occurring within the context of the church.

So an interesting thing about apologetics is that when we think about defending the faith, we typically think of it in terms of, um, interacting with atheists, but that's not always the case. I mean, take a look at Jude chapter one, verse three through four.

Uh, what I read before it says, uh, in that passage, we're told number one to content earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. And then Jude goes on to say, check this out for certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay. So the, the point here is to point out that apologetics or the contending for the faith can occur outside the church against unbelievers from without and inside the church. Notice he says those who have crept in on notice, right?

Paul described, um, you know, uh, well, Jude, I apologize. Jude describes a situation that, um, he needed to deal with within the context of the church. You see when false doctrine arises, um, we are then required to speak into that.

And when we do that's apologetics, right? In first Corinthians, uh, chapter 10 verses five through six, it says this, and this is kind of aggressive language. Uh, Paul uses here. He says, we are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised up against the knowledge of God.

And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Notice he says, we are destroying arguments. We're destroying intellectual positions and all arrogance. Okay. We're destroying arguments and arrogance raised up against the knowledge of God.

Uh, second Corinthians 10, four says for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses or what the NIV, uh, says strongholds. I like that word strongholds.

It kind of gives you this kind of military picture of a stronghold, you know, uh, the enemy being, uh, you know, based, uh, in a particular area where they have this, this stronghold, this can refer to spiritual strongholds, right?

Hence Paul's emphasis upon the weapons, not being of kind of the fleshly sort of weapons. And this could also refer to intellectual strongholds, strongholds, check this out, rooted not in Christ, but rooted in empty deception, according to the traditions of men, according to the elementary principles of the world.

That is actually a reference to Colossians two eight, right? Um, this is where Paul warns us. He tells us to be aware of a certain kind of philosophy. You see, apologetics can, uh, involve us interacting with people within the church that have adopted, right?

They've professed Christ with the mouth, but they've adopted non or unbiblical philosophies, unbiblical ways of thinking and to address those lovingly and with gentleness. And in some contexts, very sternly and strictly that's apologetics, right?

Theology as the Foundation for Apologetics

Um, so apologetics involves all these, uh, sorts of things, but again, to do apologetics and to bring that sort of correction to false doctrine, it's very important, um, to know what the Christian faith teaches.

And so another important element of doing apologetics is knowing a good biblical theology. Okay. Um, and so it's really important to know, um, what the essentials of the Christian faith are, what, what are those, uh, doctrines that are definitional to the Christian faith?

And that's a very important thing to keep in mind because often the attacks upon the Christian faith, whether they are from atheists, whether they are from Jehovah's witness, whether they're from Mormons, whoever the case may be, uh, much of the attacks upon the Christian faith are based upon misunderstandings of the Christian faith, misinterpretations of, uh, and misunderstandings of core Christian teaching that is clear in scripture.

Okay. Now I'm not saying everything is clear in scripture, right? But I would argue that the essentials of the Christian faith are clear and that language of which the word of God is, it's a book with language.

God has deemed, uh, has seen it fit to use language as an adequate mechanism to convey his truth. So with all the difficulties that we can encounter when we're reading the Bible, it is still a sufficient mechanism for God to convey what he wants us to know with respect to those essential things, those things pertaining to eternal life.

So what are some important doctrines of the Christian faith that I think are of course valuable to us because they're definitional, right? Um, but valuable to us apologetically, because oftentimes in doing apologetics, these theological points will come up.

Um, so for example, we have the deity of Christ, the idea that Jesus is God in human flesh and John 8 24, uh, Jesus says, I said, therefore to you, that you will die in your sins for if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sense.

Okay. Now this affirms, uh, the, what Jesus here is affirming that, um, you cannot deny his divine identity. And it's very interesting. He says, therefore to you, uh, I say to you, if you do not believe that I am, this is one of what we call the, I am sayings of Christ.

It's very interesting because in Exodus three 14, uh, we have the story of Moses, right? Where Moses is asking God what his name is. And God says in Exodus three 14, he says, I am who I am. And then of course he says, and thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent you.

And Jesus is claiming to be the, I am this as a clear affirmation of Jesus's affirmation of deity. And Johnny 58, we're told that Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was born. I am Jesus is attributing to himself divinity.

Why? Well, because he's God in human flesh. Again, this is linked to, uh, the broader teaching of the Trinity, which we'll talk about in just a moment, but understanding what the Bible says about the deity of Christ is very important.

John one, one in the beginning was the word. The word was with God and the word was God. John one 14 and the word became flesh. Okay. Uh, John chapter 10, verse 30 through 33, Jesus says, I am the father or one.

And why is this relevant? The Jews picked up stones again to stone him. And Jesus answered them, check this out. This is important. I showed you many good works from the father for which of them are you stoning me?

The Jews answered for a good work. We do not stone you, but for blasphemy, right? You, a mere man, make yourself out to be God. They knew exactly what Jesus was saying. He was affirming deity. Okay. Now notice in Johnny 24, and this is why we know it's an essential doctrine.

Jesus says, I said, therefore, to you that you will die in your sins, or if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sense. Notice that the denying of who Jesus is, is linked with the consequence of dying in your sins.

And that's why we know that this is an essential doctrine because it has a stipulation attached to it that if you don't believe this, and here's what's going to happen. So we kind of know that this is a definitional element here.

Okay. So the deity of Jesus Christ is something we want to be aware of. In Hebrews chapter one, verse eight, it says, but of the son, he says, God, the father says of the son, your throne, oh God, the father says this to the son, your throne, oh God is forever and ever.

And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom, so on and so forth. And so the Bible teaches that Jesus is God in human flesh. Now, of course, we believe in another aspect of theology that's very important, the hypostatic union.

Okay. Again, big word, but basically, and essentially that's just referring to the fact that Jesus Christ, we believe to be the God man. So in the person of Jesus Christ, we have both a human nature and a divine nature.

That's why you have in scripture, scriptures that seem to hint at his divinity while also affirming his human limitation. So we have these two natures residing in the one person. Okay. And again, so we talk about the doctrine of the Trinity, for example, we believe that there is one God who exists as three persons, but when we speak of the incarnated son, we're speaking of one person with two natures.

That's very, very important element of theology. In Philippians chapter two, verses five through eight, it says, have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of bond servant and being made in the likeness of men.

Okay. Verse six, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped. Okay. So it's talking about the humility of Christ. And so we should have that same humble character, right?

But it's a clear affirmation of, of the divinity of, of, of Jesus Christ. Okay. Another important feature of Christian theology, which I think is apologetically relevant. And of course, just as a Christian, we should know this, and this is really central to the gospel is the doctrine of salvation by grace through faith alone.

Okay. I do not affirm that we are saved by our faith plus our works and things like that. We are saved by grace through faith alone. Galatians five, four says this, you who are being, are trying to be justified by the law, have been alienated from Christ.

You have fallen away from grace. Notice what it says, you who are trying to be justified by the law, by what you do, right? In this case, it was circumcision, right? And you can kind of plug anything else in there.

And he says, you are alienated from Christ. So we know this is an essential doctrine because it has that stipulation connected to it. Okay. Ephesians chapter two, verses eight through nine says, it is by grace you've been saved through faith.

And this is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast. Both these verses show salvation is by grace through faith and not by works. And when you add to the works of Christ, you give evidence of false gospel, right?

To add our works to the finished work of Christ is a detriment to the gospel. And when Jesus was on the cross, okay. One of the last words that he said was it is finished. And that's a very important phrase there.

It is finished. Now in English, it is finished is three words, but the new Testament was written in Greek. And the interesting word in Greek that is captures that phrase that is finished is the word to tell us die.

Okay. The word to tell us die. And that refers to, again, this is interesting. That word has actually been found on the bottom of ancient legal documents indicating that a debt was fully paid. And so again, the Bible equates sin with debt.

We see this in the Lord's prayer, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our debts.

Even as we forgive our debtors, Jesus refers to sin as debt, Jesus to tell us die. It is finished. He paid it in full. Colossians 2 14 tells us that he nailed the certificate of debt on the cross, right?

So these are very important gospel elements. And this often comes up in apologetic context when you're debating a Roman Catholic, or you're talking to the Jehovah's witness. I mean, the Christian faith is uniquely a religion that emphasizes the work of God and not the work of the individual.

That doesn't mean our works don't play a role. It is important as our works, our good works are evidences of our being born again, but they are not the basis upon which we were born again, right? Our good works are the fruit, not the root of our salvation.

That's very important. Another important and apologetically relevant doctrine that's important to understand is of course, the resurrection of Jesus, right? This is a central feature of the Christian faith.

In first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 14, it says, and if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless. And so is your faith. And if Christ has not been raised, your fate is futile. You are still in your sins.

First Corinthians 15 17. Now these verses clearly state that if you say that Jesus did not rise from the dead in the same body, he died in, as he prophesied in John chapter two, verses 19 through 21, that your faith is useless.

Okay. This is wrapped up within the gospel. Okay. The resurrection is the central feature to the gospel. I mean, look it up. First Corinthians chapter 15 verses one through four defines for us what the gospel is.

Here's what Paul says. He says, now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel. I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand by this gospel. You are saved. If you hold firmly to the word I preached to you, otherwise you believed in vain for what I perceived.

I passed on to you as a first importance that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day, according to the scriptures. Okay. This is a central feature.

The resurrection is the pinnacle of the gospel message and what that means. Okay. And so again, very, very important to understand the apologetic value of the resurrection. Of course, there are some evidences you could use and you're sharing your faith with, with unbelievers with respect to why we think the resurrection occurred and these sorts of things.

Another feature that's important to know from a Christian perspective is monotheism, right? Now the word monotheism, which refers to the belief in one God doesn't appear in the Bible, but the idea is eminently taught there, right?

So understanding that there is only one God. Exodus 20 verse three says, you shall have no other gods before me. There are no other gods before him. Other than him, Isaiah 43, 10 says, you are my witnesses declares the Lord and my servant whom I've chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he check this out.

And this is a great verse to use when you're interacting with Mormons who believe in many gods, although they worship the God of this world, they acknowledge other gods in existence. Here's what it says.

It says, this is God speaking before me, there was no God formed and there will be none after me. Okay. Uh, that's very important. Isaiah 43, 10, an excellent verse to memorize Isaiah 44, six, thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his redeemer, the Lord of hosts.

I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides me. Do not tremble and do not be afraid. Have I not, uh, have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? Are you my, uh, and you are my witnesses.

Is there any God beside me or is there any other rock? I know of none. That's very important because if God who is omniscient, who knows all things is telling us, I know of no other gods, then it follows that there are no other gods because an all knowing being can't be wrong about that.

Right? So that's again, very, very, uh, important. All right. Um, let's see here. Uh, do, do, do, do, do. Um, there are other, um, uh, important doctrines to, uh, to keep in mind. The exclusivity of Christianity, I think is a very important doctrine as well.

Jesus is the only way to salvation. Um, so we're not pluralistic. We're not saying, Hey, it doesn't really matter. Everyone's kind of on the path to find God. No, the Bible clearly teaches an exclusive message centered upon Jesus Christ as the door through which all men must enter in order to become in right standing with God.

Okay. Jesus says in John 14, six, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father, but by me, Jesus declares that he is the only access to the father. And to deny this is to deny, uh, what Jesus is teaching.