Apologetics 101 How to Do It, How to Teach It

Revealed Apologetics

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:01

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

00:13

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

00:22

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,

00:38

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

01:04

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,

01:27

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,

01:35

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

01:47

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

02:12

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

02:38

I've learned is that when teaching theology and apologetics to teenagers, you'll be surprised how much they're able to grasp.

02:46

I remember subbing at a public school, and the students had finished all of their assignments, and so I remember while I was subbing,

02:56

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 the class, and I remember

03:10

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,

03:18

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?

03:24

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

03:37

I was a Christian, and then of course, that conversation led into, well, how do you know there's a

03:43

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,

03:57

I went through, I think like a cosmological sort of argument, or something like that, and he got it.

04:04

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,

04:15

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

04:23

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,

04:34

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.

04:41

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 there was opportunity later to kind of see the fruit of that.

04:53

So, all that to say, when we're teaching theology and apologetics, don't be afraid to go in depth.

04:59

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?

05:07

I think we kind of undersell them sometimes, underestimate them, so we don't want to do that. All right, so again,

05:14

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,

05:23

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,

05:30

I could suggest some books and maybe some videos that you might find useful moving on from here.

05:37

So, okay, so apologetics. What is apologetics? Apologetics is, it comes from the

05:42

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 reason, statement, or an argument.

05:57

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?

06:12

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 of doing something, and you give an argument to vindicate yourself, you are in essence doing apologetics, right?

06:24

You're making a defense for a certain case. Now, Christian apologetics is kind of the same thing.

06:30

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,

06:38

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

06:52

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

07:01

Christian faith, we're talking about the ability to defend the truth claims of the

07:07

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?

07:14

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,

07:23

Christianity is reasonable. Christianity has evidence, and as many people who follow my channel,

07:29

I think that Christianity provides a very important foundation for all of those things.

07:35

It creates a foundation for, you know,

07:44

Christian apologetics means to make a defense, to make a defense of the Christian faith. Now, one second here.

07:52

Let's see here. Okay, so again, the term apologetics, which comes from the Greek word apologia, is actually found throughout the

07:59

Bible. The word apologia, I think, appears around eight times in the New Testament, so the term is a biblical term.

08:05

Acts chapter 22, verse 1 says, brothers and fathers, listen to my defense, right?

08:13

That's that word apologia, right? And first Peter 3 15, of course, is the famous apologetics verse, but sanctify

08:19

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.

08:28

That's actually a very important apologetics passage that I want to kind of spend some time on, but again,

08:33

Acts chapter 25, verse 16 says, to them I answered, it is not the custom of the

08:39

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.

08:51

And 1 Corinthians chapter 9, verse 3, Paul says, my defense, my apologia to those who examine me is this, and then he kind of hits the ground running, right?

09:01

Now, the interesting thing here is that in Hebrew, the word for examine used in the passage

09:07

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, right?

09:35

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?

09:44

Now, let's kind of move back to 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 15, because this is a super important passage here. It says, but sanctify

09:50

Christ as Lord of 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.

09:59

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.

10:05

Right there, there's just rich theology to be found there, to sanctify, to set apart

10:12

Christ as what? Lord in our hearts. Now, when the

10:17

Bible uses the heart, it almost never is referring to the organ in your chest. The heart, biblically speaking, refers to the center of one's being.

10:26

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.

10:33

Christ must be the Lord of our minds. That is the prerequisite for the always being ready.

10:39

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?

10:48

That's very, very important. So we're always to be ready to make a defense to everyone.

10:55

It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's a family member, whether it's a teacher, a professor in a college classroom.

11:00

If the situation calls for it, the apostle Peter in first Peter 3 15 is telling us that we need to be ready to what?

11:08

To make a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you.

11:14

Okay. And how are we to do this? According to the apostle Paul, we are to do it with gentleness and respect.

11:22

All right. Now let's move on here. So there are kind of a couple of aspects to the apologetic coin, so to speak.

11:30

When we do apologetics, there can be what we call positive apologetics and negative apologetics.

11:37

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.

11:49

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,

11:58

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.

12:17

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.

12:29

There is the teleological argument, which is typically arguments from design, which we could from design infer a designer.

12:37

There are moral arguments, arguments from objective moral values and duties.

12:43

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

12:56

God as the law giver, okay, the foundation of the moral law. We have historical arguments for the resurrection.

13:02

This is typically focused, focused on within the apologetic methodology known as evidentialism.

13:07

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.

13:19

We have arguments from biblical inspiration. This was very much a part of the biblical apologetic.

13:25

People in the Bible would appeal to prophecy, Jesus appealing to his miracles as that which vindicates the teaching that he's bringing, right?

13:34

So you have that kind of positive element to apologetics. And then you have negative apologetics.

13:40

Negative apologetics is really, I think, between positive and negative apologetics, negative apologetics,

13:47

I think, is what intimidates a lot of people who are just kind of getting started in doing apologetics.

13:53

When you're doing negative apologetics, what you're doing is you're answering objections lodged against the

13:59

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

14:07

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?

14:18

So when you're doing negative apologetics, you're answering objections. And these objections can come in any number of ways.

14:24

You often will find attacks upon the consistency of the Bible. So there'll often be claims that the

14:31

Bible has contradictions in it, right? You know, how many animals did Noah bring on the ark?

14:36

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.

14:43

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

14:51

God, how can a good God allow evil in the world, right? Or there'll be attacks upon the coherency of the

14:59

Christian God. How can the of the Trinity be coherent and how the Trinity seems like a contradiction?

15:06

Hasn't science disproved God? Issues like that. Hasn't evolution disproven biblical creation?

15:12

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?

15:24

So you kind of have the different aspects there. You have the offensive and the defensive elements there.

15:30

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

15:38

Bible uses apologetics, knowing that there's this positive and negative aspects, we ask the question, why should we do apologetics to begin with?

15:46

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, the local atheist, or maybe the

15:57

Jehovah's witness at the door on the Saturday morning. Why should we do apologetics at all?

16:02

Okay. Well, first the Bible commands it. Okay. In Jude chapter one, verse three through five, which

16:09

I alluded to earlier on in the video here, it says this is where, here's what Jude says. He says, beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our common salvation,

16:17

I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

16:24

Jude says that for him, it was necessary that we contend for the faith.

16:31

Okay. If Jude found it necessary because he had to address specific issues in his context,

16:36

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

16:44

Christian, uh, the Christian faith when it's being attacked. Right. I wonder what it's called to sit there and just take it right.

16:50

We need to be able to speak into those situations and with gentleness and respect, navigate those conversations.

16:55

So we should do apologetics because the Bible commands us to do apologetics. And of course, first Peter three 15, right?

17:01

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.

17:07

Um, it's also important to point out that Jesus himself, uh, did apologetics and Jesus often appealed to fulfilled prophecy, right?

17:16

Mark 14, 61 through 62, Luke 24, 44 through 45. We, we see

17:21

Jesus appealing to fulfill prophecy. Jesus performed irrefutable, uh, miracles of healing, uh,

17:28

Matthew 11, uh, verses two through five. And of course we learned in first Corinthians 15, six and other places, of course, the centerpiece of the

17:35

Christian faith, which is the resurrection of Jesus, right? And the resurrection of Jesus, the reality of the resurrection of Jesus is what, uh, the new

17:44

Testament points to that vindicates, uh, the teachings of Jesus. It vindicates the identity of Jesus as a

17:52

God in flesh, right? It is the, the miracle of the resurrection that shows us that God, right.

18:00

Um, approved of Jesus, right? Because God raised him from the dead.

18:06

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.

18:13

Okay. You also have examples of the apostle Paul doing apologetics. He often debated with Greek philosophers.

18:19

You have the famous, um, Areopagus address in Acts chapter 17 verses 22 through 34, even quotes, uh, some of the

18:27

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.

18:35

Okay. Um, in Acts chapter 17 verses one through three, we're told that Paul reasoned with the

18:41

Jews in the synagogues. Okay. He, um, he dialogued with them. He interacted with them.

18:47

Um, in Galatians, the whole book of Galatians and first Corinthians, Paul is addressing and responding to false teaching, right?

18:55

Now this is interesting because, um, he's addressing false teaching that is occurring within the context of the church.

19:02

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.

19:11

Uh, but that's not always the case. I mean, take a look at Jude chapter one, verse three through four. Uh, what

19:16

I read before it says, uh, in that passage, we're told number one to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

19:22

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

19:34

God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Okay.

19:39

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.

19:51

Notice he says those who have crept in unnoticed, right? Paul described, um, you know, uh, well, well,

19:59

Jude, I apologize. Jude describes a situation that, um, he needed to deal with within the context of the church.

20:05

You see when false doctrine arises, um, we are then required to speak into that.

20:10

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.

20:20

Uh, Paul uses here. He says we are destroying arguments and all arrogance raised up against the knowledge of God.

20:26

And we're taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Notice he says we are destroying arguments.

20:32

We're destroying intellectual positions and all arrogance. Okay. We're destroying arguments and arrogance raised up against the knowledge of God.

20:43

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

20:52

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?

21:09

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.

21:27

That is actually a reference to Colossians two eight, right? Um, this is where Paul warns us.

21:32

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?

21:42

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.

21:54

And in some contexts, very sternly and strictly that's apologetics, right? 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

22:09

Christian faith teaches. And so another important element of doing apologetics is knowing a good biblical theology.

22:18

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

22:28

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

22:42

Christian faith are based upon misunderstandings of the Christian faith, misinterpretations of, uh, and misunderstandings of core

22:50

Christian teaching that is clear in scripture. Okay. Now I'm not saying everything is clear in scripture, right?

22:56

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.

23:04

God has deemed, has seen it fit to use language as an adequate mechanism to convey his truth.

23:11

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.

23:24

So what are some important doctrines of the Christian faith that I think are of course valuable to us because they're definitional, right?

23:32

Um, but valuable to us apologetically, because oftentimes in doing apologetics, these theological points will come up.

23:38

Um, so for example, we have the deity of Christ, the idea that Jesus is God in human flesh and John 8, 24, uh,

23:46

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 sins.

23:52

Okay. Now this affirms, uh, the, what Jesus here is affirming that, um, you cannot deny his divine identity.

24:03

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,

24:11

I am sayings of Christ. It's very interesting because in Exodus 3, 14, uh, we have the story of Moses, right?

24:17

Where Moses is asking God what his name is. And God says in Exodus 3, 14, he says,

24:23

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.

24:30

And Jesus is claiming to be the, I am this as a clear affirmation of Jesus's affirmation of deity and Johnny 58.

24:39

We're told that Jesus says, truly, truly, I say to you before Abraham was born, I am Jesus is, uh, attributing to himself divinity.

24:47

Why? Well, because he's got in human flesh. Again, this is linked to, uh, the broader teaching of the

24:53

Trinity, which we'll talk about in just a moment, but understanding what the Bible says about the deity of Christ is very important.

24:58

John one, one in the beginning was the word, the word was with God. And the word was God, John one 14.

25:03

And the word became flesh. Okay. Uh, John chapter 10, verse 30 through 33,

25:10

Jesus says, I am the And why is this relevant? The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.

25:17

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?

25:24

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

25:31

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.

25:39

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 sins.

25:45

Notice that the denying of who Jesus is, is linked with the consequence of dying in your sins.

25:52

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.

25:58

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.

26:07

Um, in Hebrews chapter one, verse eight, it says, but of the son, he says, God, the father says of the son, your throne.

26:14

Oh God, the father says this to the son, your throne. Oh God is forever and ever.

26:19

And the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom. So on and so forth. And so, um, the Bible teaches that Jesus is

26:25

God in human flesh. Now, of course we believe in, um, another aspect of theology.

26:31

That's very important. The hypostatic union. Okay. Again, big word, but basically, and essentially that's just referring to the fact that, uh,

26:38

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.

26:48

That's why you have in scripture, scriptures that seem to hint at his divinity while also affirming his human limitation.

26:56

So we have these two natures, uh, residing in the one person. Okay. Um, and again, so we talk about the doctrine of the for example, we believe that there was one

27:05

God who exists as three persons. But when we speak of the incarnated son, we're speaking of one person with two natures.

27:13

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.

27:32

Okay. Verse six, although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God, a thing to be grasped.

27:39

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.

27:48

Okay. Another important feature of Christian theology, which I think is apologetically relevant.

27:53

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.

28:01

Okay. I do not affirm that we are saved by our faith plus our works and things like that.

28:09

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.

28:18

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?

28:25

In this case, it was circumcision, right? You can kind of plug anything else in there. And he says, you are alienated from Christ.

28:31

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, for it is by grace you've been saved through faith.

28:40

And this is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.

28:46

Both these verses show salvation is by grace through faith and not by works.

28:52

And when you add to the works of Christ, you give evidence of a false gospel, right?

28:59

To add our works to the finished work of Christ is a detriment to the gospel.

29:04

And when Jesus was on the cross, okay, one of the last words that he said was, it is finished.

29:10

And that's a very important phrase there. It is finished. Now in English, it is finished is three words, but the new

29:17

Testament was written in Greek. And the interesting word in Greek that is captured as that phrase that is finished is the word to tell us die.

29:24

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.

29:35

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.

29:45

Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our debts. Even as we forgive our debtors, Jesus refers to sin as debt,

29:55

Jesus to tell us die, it is finished. He paid it in full. Colossians 2 .14

30:01

tells us that he nailed the certificate of debt on the cross, right?

30:07

So these are very important gospel elements. And this often comes up in apologetic context when you're debating a

30:13

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.

30:24

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?

30:35

Our good works are the fruit, not the root of our salvation. That's very important. And other important and apologetically relevant doctrine that's important to understand is of course, the resurrection of Jesus, right?

30:46

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.

30:56

And if Christ has not been raised, your fate is futile. You are still in your sins. First Corinthians 15 .17.

31:03

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, then your faith is useless.

31:14

Okay. This is wrapped up within the gospel. Okay. The resurrection is the central feature to the gospel.

31:20

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.

31:25

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.

31:32

You are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise you believed in vain for what

31:37

I've received. 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.

31:47

Okay. This is a central feature. The resurrection is the pinnacle of the gospel message and what that means.

31:54

Okay. And so again, very, very important to understand the apologetic value of the resurrection. Of course, there are some evidences you could use in your sharing your faith with, with unbelievers, with respect to why we think the resurrection occurred and these sorts of things.

32:10

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

32:18

God doesn't appear in the Bible, but the idea is eminently taught there, right? So understanding that there is only one

32:25

God. Exodus 20 verse three says, you shall have no other gods before me. There are no other gods before him.

32:31

Other than him, Isaiah 43, 10 says, you are my witnesses declares the Lord and my servant whom

32:38

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

32:48

God of this world, they acknowledge other gods in existence. Here's what it says. It says, this is

32:53

God speaking before me, there was no God formed and there will be none after me.

33:01

Okay. Uh, that's very important. Isaiah 43, 10, an excellent verse to memorize Isaiah 44, six, thus says the

33:08

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

33:13

God besides me. Do not tremble and do not be afraid. Have I not, uh, have

33:18

I not long since announced it to you and declared it? Are you my, uh, and you are my witnesses.

33:24

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,

33:35

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.

33:41

Right? So that's again, very, very, uh, important. All right. Um, let's see here.

33:48

Uh, do, do, do, do, do. Um, there are other, um, uh, important doctrines to, uh, to keep in mind.

33:56

The exclusivity of Christianity, I think is a very important doctrine as well. Jesus is the only way to salvation.

34:02

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

34:09

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.

34:18

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,

34:26

Jesus declares that he is the only access to the father. And to deny this is to deny, uh, what

34:32

Jesus is teaching. Okay. Another important element of the Christian faith is the virgin birth. Okay.

34:38

We believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, Matthew one 23. We know the story behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a son and they shall call his name

34:45

Emmanuel, which translates, uh, God with us without the virgin birth. We cannot substantiate the doctrine of the incarnation of Jesus being

34:54

God in flesh. This would put at risk, uh, what Jesus said in John eight 24, where he said, I said, therefore to you that you will die in your sins.

35:01

For if you do not believe that I am, you will die in your sins. Okay. Another important feature centerpiece of apologetic, uh, conversation and always comes up, uh, is the doctrine of the

35:12

Trinity, right? Now, uh, the doctrine of the Trinity is, uh, the word Trinity, uh,

35:18

I'm going to mention is not in the Bible. Uh, but the key is not whether the word is there. The key is whether the idea is taught.

35:25

And of course, um, it is okay. Um, Matthew 28, 19, Jesus says the great missionary, he says, go there for, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name singular of the father and of the son and of the

35:39

Holy and of the father and the son and the Holy spirit. Okay. That's important.

35:44

Okay. So when we're talking about the Trinity, uh, again, you have verses that kind of hint to this. Now we don't find one verse that perfectly summarizes the doctrine of the

35:52

Trinity is actually derived from a consistent look at what all of scripture has to say. And I think that's, uh, important.

35:58

All right. Uh, first Corinthians chapter 12, verse four through six. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of ministries and the same

36:05

Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.

36:11

We have the spirit, the Lord and God, which I think is referring to God, the father. Um, we have in a second

36:17

Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the spirit be with you all

36:24

Ephesians four, four through six, there was one body and one spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling one

36:31

Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all who is overall and through all and in all.

36:38

Okay. Very, very important. The doctrine of the Trinity derived from a, uh, looking at what all the

36:44

Bible has to say with respect to these, uh, you know, to that idea. Of course, we know that when it speaks of one

36:50

Lord, uh, and when it's referring to Jesus, we know that Jesus is called and that there are, uh, explicit teachings of his divinity.

36:58

We know that the Holy spirit in the book of Acts is referred to in personal pronouns. He's described as he, uh, he can be lied to.

37:05

He can be grieved. Those are things that one can do to a person. Okay. And of course, God, the father is referred to as the father.

37:12

So we have the idea that there is one God monotheism, but within monotheism, we have the father being called

37:18

God, the son being called God, and the Holy spirit being called God. The knowledge of the doctrine of the

37:24

Trinity and how to defend it from scripture is vitally important to apologetics. Equipping yourself with sound biblical doctrine will equip you to speak with Mormons, Jehovah's witnesses, uninformed atheists, informed atheists who might not know the details of the

37:39

Christian faith, right? Uh, it will equip you to speak with anyone. Uh, what I found in my own interaction,

37:44

I mean, I've studied, I studied philosophy, I studied apologetics and all this sorts of stuff, but in the majority of my conversations, um, the conversation always goes down, always boils down to basic theology.

37:57

It just does. I mean, I don't know if you, if you can, if you could attest to that in your own personal interactions with unbelievers, but I'm surprised that sometimes

38:06

I feel like I'm wasting my time. I read all these books about all this, you know, these arguments over here and this evidence over here.

38:12

But when push comes to shove, the majority of my conversations with people pertain to basic Christian doctrine, you know, theology one -on -one.

38:19

So the key to apologetics one -on -one is understanding theology one -on -one and how to apply that theology one -on -one to the realm of unbelief and how we apply that to how we interact with, um, uh, with unbelievers.

38:33

Okay. How do we teach it? We start laying the foundation, right? Raising your kids up into knowing what the scriptures teach, uh, giving them a good dose of solid biblical theology, helping them understand how doctrines and teachings relate to one another, where it's found in scripture and why we think it's true.

38:52

Um, so again, theology and apologetics go hand in hand. The way we do apologetics must be consistent with what we affirm in theology.

39:01

So they are married together. They're not to be separated. You want to be a good apologist. You need to know theology.

39:07

You want to be a clear thinker. Your theology needs to be also connected to a coherent philosophy.

39:15

Philosophy helps us to think clear and distinctly about things and to identify logical errors, uh, in the thinking of the unbeliever, as well as thinking within our own line of reasoning.

39:24

So philosophy, theology, um, apologetics, all of these things are important to kind of take in and, uh, expose yourself to and expose your children to, uh, to various degrees.

39:36

Okay. Now there are a lot of, there's lots of material out there. Okay. Um, with respect to, you know, learning apologetics, the basic of apologetics and, um, to be perfectly honest, uh,

39:49

I primarily learned at the beginning through like certain blogs and websites. I remember, uh, CARM, a Christian apologetics research ministry was a really great tool, uh, for me when

39:58

I, when I was getting started at these kinds of sustained and short, um, articles that are helpful.

40:03

If you're just getting started, you can't read like, uh, you know, a huge book, you know, check out a website like CARM or, uh, you know, other websites available.

40:10

I have a website revealedapologetics .com. There was a lot of websites out there that can kind of equip you with little nuggets.

40:16

If you're not the sort of person that has the time to kind of thrust yourself into like a really in -depth study.

40:22

Um, but really the best resources is going to be, uh, a Bible, know your Bible and a good systematic theology.

40:29

Okay. I know there are people who study theology and are very, you know, well, you know, my favorite systematic theology is this and that.

40:37

Yeah, I get it. There's a lot of stuff out there. Right. Um, but I highly recommend because of its simplicity and just the way that it explains things, um, every

40:45

Christian should own a systematic theology. I happen to like Wayne Grudem. I know that there are people who kind of, uh, you know, may have a different preference, but I actually love the way this book is formatted.

40:56

This is the most recent edition, uh, get a systematic theology. And if you're just getting into this stuff, don't be intimidated by the thickness of this book.

41:05

Systematic theologies are not necessarily meant to be read from beginning to end. The chapters are actually pretty short.

41:11

Uh, there's some study questions and things like that. It's just thick because it covers all of the major features of But don't be intimidated by the size of it.

41:20

But I think that mastering the scriptures, getting a good systematic theology, just being acquainted with basic Christian theology, um, is vitally important in doing apologetics.

41:29

Now there's so much more that I could say, and I'm sure that, uh, folks who might be more seasoned and in apologetics are watching this video.

41:37

I'm sure you could add more resources if you want to add them in the comment section below, maybe to point people in the right direction.

41:43

Um, but these are kind of my thoughts here. Uh, you want to do apologetics well, know your theology, have a little philosophy in which you can kind of coherently think about these things and, and, uh, you know, and, and go out trust

41:56

God and you're going to go out there and you're going to share your faith and you're going to screw up. You're going to mess up, but it's all part of the learning process.

42:03

The more you do it, the more you learn from it, the more you learn from it, the better you will be at doing it. So it's a process, right?

42:10

Um, so I encourage folks, hopefully this little lesson here, I do apologize. Usually I put out some long things with interviews and stuff.

42:18

I'm going to be having some stuff coming up. Um, but I haven't done something in a while. I've been super busy. And so I figured I'd just jump on here and share a little lesson on apologetics one -on -one and theology one -on -one.

42:29

So I hope you found this helpful. If you have found reveal apologetics to be useful to you, uh, please consider, um, uh, contributing financially.

42:38

If possible, if you can go on to reveal the apologetics .com, there is a donate button that helps me and frees me up to do a lot more content.

42:46

Um, and, uh, it gives me the resources to kind of get equipment and kind of, I want to, here's the goal.

42:52

I'm going to whisper this here. I want to do this full -time one day. Uh, but that requires, uh, support.

42:57

So if, if you can kindly consider supporting great, if you can't, uh, support, then,

43:02

Hey, these videos are free, enjoy them, uh, use them and, um, you know, uh, benefit from them as much as possible.

43:09

I mean, I am here to serve. Uh, this is for believers. I want to equip people.

43:15

I want to encourage people to go out there and just start defending the faith. Um, not getting bogged down with all of the in -house fighting amongst

43:22

Christians, but learn the gospel, learn how to defend it and go out there and allow God to use you in awesome ways.

43:29

All right. Well, uh, that's all for this, uh, this episode. I hope you guys have found it useful.

43:34

Uh, be sure to click the like button and the notification bell for a future upcoming videos, which there are a couple of good ones on there.

43:42

I'm going to be doing kind of this, uh, epic and super long live stream on Calvinism. So I'm going to be going through all of the, the acronym, the letters and tulip

43:51

T U L I P. I'm going to go through all of those and scripture and stuff like that. And it's going to be, it's going to be cool. And I have, um, some really cool interviews coming up as well.

43:59

All right. So click the notification bell, click the like button and go over to iTunes and write a good review.

44:04

If you like the podcast as well. Um, I greatly appreciate that. Well, that's it for this episode.