Episode 114: Apologetics and the Local Church

Rural Church Podcast 2.0

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Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. This is my beloved son, with whom

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I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas?

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You see that one in Pechote, Mexico? Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

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The church is not a democracy. It's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be

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Christian without a local church. You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the

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Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible -believing church, and spend your life serving

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Jesus in a local, visible congregation. Welcome to the

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Ruled Church Podcast. I'm Alan Nelson. I am one of the pastors here at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas.

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And we have with us today a Yankee up from north. You're from the north part of the state, man.

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Oh yeah, that's true. I'm a Yankee in this context. I'm just teasing, brother. Where are you from originally?

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I am born and raised in Jonesboro, Arkansas. I've rarely left this town.

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Yeah, okay. Well, the voice you're hearing is the one and only apologetic dog,

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Jeremiah Nortier, who has ascended the ranks, because,

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I mean, you've gone from James White to now Alan Nelson. I'm like, what? Yes, that's true.

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Did I say ascend? Maybe I meant descend. Anyway, no, it's a joy to have you, brother. I try to think, when did we first meet?

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Did you think we first met at G3 in like 2018? I think so. I got one of your books, and I was like,

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Pastor Alan, will you please sign this? And you said something like, hey, you know this diminishes in value if I sign.

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I was like, I don't care. Well, no. So we've known of each other.

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We've known each other, known of each other. Goodness, that's been over seven years now, but here in the last, well, over the years, you know, we've interacted on some things, but got to chat recently.

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I got to come up there with you guys. Really grateful for that with James White. Man, that was one.

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So it's a joy to have you on today. We're going to talk about apologetics and those sorts of things, but you know what?

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I want to just start. Let me give you the floor, brother. We already know you're rarely out of the big city of Jonesboro, but tell us about you, your family, your church.

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Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Jeremiah Nortier, born and raised, grown up in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

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Went to one of the local public schools, Westside. Loved basketball, played for so many years, and God saved me by His amazing grace when

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I was 14, and it wasn't until about 21 years old where I felt like He really grabbed a hold of my heart.

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Started feeling that call to ministry, and so about my mid -20s, I started doing, you know, ministry at a few different churches outside of Jonesboro, and I've been in a couple different churches, and that led me to doing a church plant with Pastor Nathan Hargrave, and so we planted firstly with Nathan, and I came on board just a couple weeks after on 12 .5

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Church, is the church that we both are elders and pastor at, along with Pastor Keith Hinnick, and so 12 .5

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comes from Romans 12, verse 5, which essentially says, as the saints, we are one, individually one of another, but we are ultimately one together in the body of Christ, and so we are essentially the only

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Reformed Baptist church in Jonesboro. We have a lot of Reformed brethren out there, especially our Presby bros, and so before each service,

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Pastor Allen, we pray for local bodies of churches that informs our people, who we deem as actual churches that believe in a true gospel that are called out by God's grace, and then we're also very intentional by saying, look, just because someone wears the banner of church doesn't necessarily mean that they are, but we give those reasons, so that's a little bit something distinct that we do in our services, but I've been a part of the 12 .5

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church plant. Every time I say plant, Pastor Keith gets on to me because he says, we're not planting anymore. We're fully on the ground, and I'm like, that's true, so we're a little bit over four years old now, so we actually planted,

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Pastor Allen, back in 2020. When all the other churches were shutting down, we were planting, so we've actually moved into the heart of Jonesboro and downtown.

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We have a beautiful location. If anybody ever ate at Doe's Eat Place restaurant, we've leased that building out.

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We have it for a number of years, and so it's been incredible so far, and so like you alluded to, a few years ago,

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I really was talking to Pastor Nathan about doing apologetics, and so that led to the apologetic dog, and from the very get -go,

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I wanted to be under the oversight of the local church and to have the accountability of the members and obviously the leadership, and so a funny story about the apologetic dog.

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Didn't really know what to name it. Didn't really know what we wanted it to look like as far as the logo and things like that.

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I remember sitting in my living room with my beautiful bride, Allie Nortier, who's the babe of all babes, if she ever listens to this.

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I said, you know, I want it to revolve around the doctrines of grace, so D -O -G, and she said,

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I've got it, the apologetic dog, and so we laughed, we're like, there's no way that's gonna stick. Well, and so it had kind of a ring to it as we kind of consulted other people, but if people ever see the logo, they'll see 1

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Timothy 6, verse 20, where Paul tells Timothy, oh, Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you, and so that was kind of the eureka moment because we wanted the kind of mindset, the heart behind the apologetic dog, is to say, look, all

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Christians are to guard the gospel of grace. How do we do that? Well, we avoid irreverent babble, pagan philosophy, how, by exposing the contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, and so, you know,

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I'm a student of epistemology, Greg Bonson, Cornelius Van Til, and so the study of how we know what we know and truth, that's a part of my heart's desire, and so I'm in the studio here.

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I have John 17, 17 posted because really, what is truth? It's that which has been revealed to us by God, and we start in His revelation and His written word.

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Jesus said, Father, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. So when I engage in apologetics and giving a defense for the faith and contending for the faith, that we stand on the only worldview that can account for beauty, truth, meaning, purpose, and that comes all the way back to Christianity and God's truth in which

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He's revealed to us in His word. So how's that for a start? Amen, that's great, that's great.

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That's several things I want to get to. One, though, that just came up in my mind as you're talking, I'm sure you already know about it, but tell the listeners,

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Apologia has the Bonson axis, what do they call it, Bonson U?

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Bonson U for university. And I was just going to tell you recently, and I haven't listened to the whole thing just when

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I was driving, but recently I was listening to the Bonson Sproul debate and over apologetic methodology.

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And I just say this, well, I lay my cards on the table, I'm a presuppositionalist, but I encourage people to listen to that debate.

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It really lays out the points. Something else it does too, brother, is Bonson and Sproul were able to have a really important debate and love each other.

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Yeah, what you got there? Oh, you got the classical apologetics? Yeah, so R .C.

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Sproul, he studied under John Gerstner, they were a pair, and so they critiqued presuppositional apologetics in their overall book on classical apologetics.

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And it's a great resource just to kind of see different ideas, methodologies of how to defend the faith.

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And another book that I always recommend people is the Five Views on Apologetics, where you have authors like William Lane Craig defending the classical apologetics view, you have

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Gary Habermas with the incrementalist view, and then you have John Frame defending the presuppositionalist and much more.

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So I always tell people let's be charitable because these are brothers in the faith and we have different presuppositions, different methodologies of how we are from a heart of love trying to defend the gospel, our

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Lord and Savior, who saved us from our sins. So I'm super charitable in the conversations. Yeah, and hopefully we have the same goal, right?

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The glory of God and salvation of souls. But anyway, yeah, so those debates, and man, you got, you know,

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I think you just joined X not long ago, right? Oh, yeah, Dr. White kind of guilt -tripped me and shaming me for not being on there.

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So I finally bit the bullet and I'm in the Twitter world. That's good, what's your username there?

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The handle is thedog620 because that was kind of hard to get.

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Yeah, you've joined so late, all the good handles have been taken. But no, well, let's, yeah, that's great.

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So yeah, definitely some people may be listening to this and all these words we just threw out about apologetics, like what, so maybe for a different time they can, you know, study methodology and such.

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But, you know, what I want to talk to you about is what really got you in, oh, you know, wait, hold on before we get to that.

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You say you're a Reformed Baptist Church. What, when you say that, because we're a

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Reformed Baptist Church, what do you mean? Are you guys confessional or are you just like, hey, we hold the doctrine of grace?

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You know what I'm saying? Because a lot of people mean different things. So why don't you let our folks know about that?

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Yeah, because I know certain Presbyterians that say, no, no, no, we're the truly Reformed. And I tell people, look,

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I don't really care about the labels. Particular Baptist, I'm fine with that too. But when

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I say Reformed, I'm saying, obviously you have the five points of Calvinism. We affirm the five solas of the

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Reformation. But what seems to be the principle of Reformed is having a covenant theology.

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Having a covenant theology recognizes a historic faith as well.

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So then I'm saying, yes, creeds, confessions that we can point to to say, look how God has been building his church and the gates of hell will not prevail.

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But kind of the big principle for me is covenant because I grew up Southern Baptist and have nothing but love for my

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Southern Baptist brothers. But it was very dispensational and their kind of understanding how God has related to man.

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And I think covenant theology kind of challenges the dispensational thought to say, there is a cohesive worldview, systematic biblical theology, how

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God has been building a church and relating to his people. And I think what separates us, there's maybe a number of things from the

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Presbyterian thought, but we'd say God's covenant people has always been believers.

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And so I think that's actually going to cash out with how we understand the ordinances.

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I'm okay with saying the sacraments, they're a means of grace, but not in the way that Roman Catholics and other people mean it to be.

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But yeah, so covenant is what really rises to the top that I think when I think of reformed.

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Do you guys have a confession or statement of faith or? Yeah, the second

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London Baptist confession of faith, 1689. That is the one that we probably would most hold to.

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But we also are very charitable. Like when people look up our statement of faith, it's a little bit later on our website that you see the 1689 coming out, just because a lot of people don't know what that means.

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And we try to meet Jonesboro's culture where they're at. And so something real exciting in a few weeks on our

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Wednesday, so Wednesday nights, we don't say that it's a Bible study, we call it theological training. It's distinct from the

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Lord's day, but we really try to set the pace in order what people should expect on a

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Wednesday night. But we're about to do a deep dive in going through the 1689 Second London Baptist Confession.

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Oh, man. And it's gonna be really helpful. We're gonna go all out, Pastor Nelson, with handouts and the actual confession that people can take home.

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And we tell people this is a kind of authority, but it's not the ultimate authority as revealed to us in God's Word.

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Yeah, that's good. Well, I'm encouraged to hear all that. This is all just extra. I don't know what the title of the show will be yet.

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I'll come up with something. But I did want to get into apologetics. And I want it because some people listening to this may not even really understand what that means.

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And then others might be like, well, is that really anything that we have to care about? And this is called the

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Ruled Church Podcast. I love all churches, but particularly I think about churches less represented in the podcast world, which would be the churches like I pastor and just kind of out in the country and those sorts.

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So why don't you talk about, what led you into apologetics? Let's start with that one. So how'd you get to apologetics?

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Yeah, so I think a number of things contributed to that.

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I want to back up. So when I was about 21 and I feel like this is where God really started sanctifying my life and really letting me know that, hey, it's time to really lean into the faith, what you've been called to.

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And this was kind of in college. So that's when I really started to have a desire to rightly handle the

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Word of God, to study, to show myself approved, and to just be informed how

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I ought to live my Christian life to the glory of God. And so I kind of start with three men that strongly impacted me in terms of the faith.

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Number one was John MacArthur. Our listeners can't see it, but I still have Johnny Mac's commentary over here.

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Because the church that I went to at the time had a lot of questions, and they just let me know, like, hey, we don't get into those kinds of questions.

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The questions were about Romans 8 and predestination. And I was like, well,

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I got a John MacArthur study Bible and I can find answers there. And so what John MacArthur and his ministry really helped me cultivate is a love for the

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Word of God. I will always tell people that. Very grateful for this man's ministry, how God has used him mightily.

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And so a little bit later, that led to R .C. Sproul. R .C. Sproul really helped show me a love for church history and the holiness of God and things like that.

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And these two men had a camaraderie, a friendship, and I thought that is how Christian fellowship in light of disagreement should look like.

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And that's always made a huge impact on me. And so number three, I believe this man took the best of both worlds,

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Dr. James White. He took church history. He took a love for God's Word and he applied it into the world of apologetics.

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And so years ago, started watching this man's debates and realizing he doesn't just debate on one topic, but a full range of topics from Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormonism, to atheists, and just everything in between.

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And he is the one that really opened up me to apologetics.

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And so that word just simply means to give a defense. And so we'll get into maybe some of the verses to where all

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Christians are called to give a defense, to be in the world of apologetics. Every Christian is an apologist.

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The question is, are you a good one or not? That's good. That's excellent. Yeah. So Dr. White, he is the one that kind of opened that door to me in the world of Christian apologetics.

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Oh, man. Yeah. Why don't you drop a firebomb like that and let's just tease that out a little bit.

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Yeah. Every Christian is an apologist. That's good. The question is whether you're a good one.

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What do you mean by that? Yes. So when you look at the New Testament, yeah, there are pastoral epistles and those who are called to leadership, but many of those principles for the leaders in the church are principles that are also to be modeled by Christians, lay

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Christians, those that are members of a local healthy church. And so when I go to 1 Peter 3 15, this is kind of like the go -to apologetics verse.

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This is written to Christians, right? And so I do want to read this verse just for our listeners.

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Peter says, But in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense, an apologia, where we get the word apologetics, a defense to anyone who asks for you a reason for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect.

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And so, you know, a lot of people hear the word apologetics or apologies and they're like, are you just, if you're an apologist, do you just walk around saying you're sorry all the time?

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I'm like, no, no, no, we're defending the faith that's been entrusted to us. We're defending our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And how are we doing that? Ultimately, we're just sharing the truth of God's word.

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And so even though apologetics is defensive in nature, Jude verse 3 talks about that we are to contend for the faith that has been once delivered to the saints.

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And so I played basketball. I was point guard, Pastor Allen. So I'm familiar with offense and defense.

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And so that is part and parcel of the Christian life is we also ask those who are asking a defense, those who are asking questions about our

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Lord and Savior, we also return the favor and ask questions about their worldview. Where do they get truth?

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How do they have peace in this life? How do they deal with a guilty conscience? Because we know that they're image bearers of God and they deal with sin.

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And it's a good platform to say, let me tell you why I live my life the way that I do.

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Now that verse started out with saying, revere Christ in your hearts or sanctify Christ in your hearts as holy.

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And so the Christian life is dominated by giving God glory and always having

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Jesus Christ on our lips to share with other people. We're not jerks. We're not called to be jerks and to win arguments for the sake of winning arguments, but we do these things with gentleness and respect.

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The apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4, 15, speak the truth firmly, but in love.

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And so our life ought to be consistent with the gospel that we preach. And so people should look at our lives in such a way and that should compel them to ask us why we live that way.

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Let me ask you this. What would you say, and maybe you don't define it as apologetics, but what would you say the role of apologetics is in discussions between professing believers?

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So here's what I'm thinking, brother. Not long ago, you had a debate hosted by your church and it was on the scope of the atonement.

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And would you put that under the bigger banner of apologetics or not?

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Sure. In some ways, all these things relate to apologetics in some way.

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Usually we just think about the James Whites that are debating atheists, and that is a professional apologist.

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And there's some merit to all that, but at a very common level from the scripture, all these things, all these theological discussions, you ought to be defending things that you convictionally believe to be true.

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So yeah, it is apologetics at some level, but I'm glad you brought this debate up because actually last night at 12 .5,

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me and Pastor Keith were on stage and we did a review of both debates.

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And so we kind of started out with the limited atonement debate. And I said, I wanted all of our members at 12 .5

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to hear me say this, that this first debate is an intramural debate. These are brothers talking about theology and this is essentially iron sharpening iron.

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It's important, but this isn't a heel to die on. You know what I mean? And so I was able to just say, look, the atonement is at the heart of the gospel.

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What did Jesus accomplish at Calvary by shedding his blood? What does it mean that he was an atoning sacrifice and reconciles us back to God, satisfying the wrath of God?

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But there have been Christians, wonderful brothers throughout church history that have seen this issue on different sides.

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And so we're trying to harmonize the universal text in scripture, like seemingly, for God so loved the world or Christ desires that all people come to repentance with very particular verses, like Jesus came to save his people from their sins.

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And so this is a debate where we're trying to harmonize the scripture. It should be definitely done in love, in light of disagreements amongst brothers.

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But that's to be contrasted with those other debates where the gospel hangs in the balance.

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Like with Rome, like with the other one. We were going through eschatology and we went to Romans 11 the other night in our study on a

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Wednesday night. And before we did that, we read Romans 9, 10, 11 together. And I just made the comment like, look,

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I'm just going to say that if you have any kind of system, biblical system, or any kind of theological system, and you have to skip large portions of scripture in order to make it fit, then it doesn't work.

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So that's right, we want to harmonize, that's good. Okay, so I got two more things that I really want to work through.

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We'll see where that leads. One is, I want to talk about more why you, because you said early on, you felt that you wanted your ministry to be under the oversight of a local church.

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And then I kind of want to talk about some like, how and how do pastors in churches like mine care and lead their people in apologetics?

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So which one do you want to tackle first? I'll start with the first one. And you'll have to remind me of the second one because I'm sure

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I'll get a little long -winded. Maybe this will help too. I'll talk how I more specifically got into apologetics.

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Like I said, it was kind of, I wasn't seeking out after it per se, but I was just already doing it.

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And we just, me and Pastor Nathan thought, okay, how can we make this better to help more people, essentially? So something that I've always been intrigued, so I have a heart for learning.

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As Proverbs chapter nine talks about, teach a just man, he will become wiser still.

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So I've always encouraged people, the heart of apologetics is to be a lifelong learner. That's also the heart of a

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Christian, right? To grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And so one way that's really helped me in learning theology, learning truth, testing all things and holding fast to that, which is good, is

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I just watched tons of debates online. And so there's a few different YouTube channels that platform a lot of debates.

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And so one that was up and growing, and I just saw so many good debates, is

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Marlon Wilson's channel, The Gospel Truth. And I'm telling you, he got some heavy hitters, really great theologians, scholars on there, just debating multiple different topics.

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And so I actually messaged him and said, hey, I have a suggestion of a kind of debate that I would like to see.

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I was very intentional and said, I'd like to see this if it's possible. And I did say something like,

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I'd like to see a Church of Christ and a Baptist debate on is baptism necessary for salvation or something like that.

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He messaged me back pretty fast and said, that's a good idea. Oh, by the way, would you like to debate a Mormon? And I scratched my head thinking, oh goodness,

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I was not prepared for this, but thought about it, asked more questions, and I basically told him, sign me up.

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So this was my first debate that I ever did. It was online. I was nervous, but it was great.

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We actually covered four different topics. It was actually a worldview debate slash discussion where we talked about the gospel.

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That was kind of the first 30 minute back and forth. The second was Galatians 1 and Joseph Smith.

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So it was really good to kind of get the heart of their worldview. We talked about the Trinity and lastly, the sufficiency of the scripture.

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And what I wanted to say, Pastor Allen, was I was hooked after that first one, right?

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Just in debating. And so I did a few more online debates. I debated an

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Eastern Orthodox on the gospel. I debated a Roman Catholic on some of the dogmas of Mary and if she was sinless.

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And so did three, I think, online debates. And then it was actually a G3. That might've been the

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G3 that we met, but I got a message from a local Church of Christ minister that asked me if I would like to participate in a public debate.

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I said yes so fast because I really wanted this to happen.

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And so long story short, this was probably one of the best debates that I was a part of.

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It was produced well. It's on my channel and it's got a lot of traction. But we talked about, essentially, is baptism necessary for being declared right before God?

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And so I encourage people to go check that out. But I say all that to say this. After that debate, that public debate with Church of Christ, I realized that I want to keep doing this kind of thing.

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When I say this kind of thing, I want to do apologetics a little bit more succinctly, a little bit more with purpose.

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And so that's what kind of led me in to having a kind of logo. And when

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I say a logo, like it's good to kind of have a good presentation, something memorable. That's what people laugh at the apologetic dog because when they look at the logo, it's a pit bull dog with a beard.

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And I tell people it's a reform beard, by the way. But it's memorable. It makes an impression on people.

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And they hear me say the gospel of grace over and over and over again. And I define that by we are trusting in Christ alone, by faith alone, apart from our works.

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And so it's just been good when you kind of have that kind of presentation, trying to put your best foot forward in terms of quality content.

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And so this kind of moves into the other thing you asked me about is

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Dr. White made a strong impression on me a long time ago because he is an apologist, but he always said, look at all these rogue apologist speakers that are not rooted in the local church.

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And so he said, you have to have accountability. And so from the very get go,

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I knew that that has been true. The Lord has blessed my heart with the assembling of the saints, your church family, your household.

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And so I wanted to get the affirmation of the members of 12

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Five Church of me pursuing apologetics more in a public atmosphere. And it was a resounding yes.

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And so just to have kind of that tangible affirmation of my church family, that kind of gave me the assurance that it does seem like God is calling me to this kind of evangelism.

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So that's something else. I tell people apologetics is informative. It is educational. But depending on the kind of topic, it's evangelistic, especially when

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I'm contending with Roman Catholics on topics that pertain to the gospel. Like I want people to be called out by God's grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

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And so I've always wanted and seen the benefit of including my church family every step of the way.

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Amen. That's great. I think in the reform world today, not just the reform world, but I think about the reform world.

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There's a lot of so -called ministries out there that are just floating around that are really,

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I mean, they may talk about the church. They're really untethered from the church. And where I'm at, brother, is

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I'm all in on the local church. That is what God is doing in the world today. And any kind of ministry or missions or, you know, evangelism.

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Hey, even you got guys who are trying to do street preaching and stuff, untethered from the local church, you know?

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So I just, man, I just, when Pastor Nathan told me that about the apologetic ministry coming under the oversight and leadership of the church, that's so encouraging to me.

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And I think that others need to really consider that when they think about ministry, you know?

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Too many guys trying to build their own kingdom. Yeah, and it's to your benefit to be rooted in the local church.

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You know, I'll name drop some people, but like when I look at Ravi Zacharias, this is a good example of what can happen to any of us that don't have that accountability in your life.

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Traveling, especially without your spouse, without your family, without consulting with the elders.

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I mean, there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors and so when you remove all of that, when you're isolated from sound wisdom,

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Proverbs chapter 18 begins by saying, that's a fool, that's a foolish mindset to isolate yourself from wisdom and insight from other people.

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And so it's to your own benefit because you need other brothers and sisters gifted with the spirit speaking truth into your life.

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And so I value that so much, I don't run away from it. And in fact, it's the member, it's the leadership at 12 .5

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and the members at 12 .5, when they have a valid critique, I'm all ears.

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And because I'm a representation of them and more fundamentally, I'm a representative of Jesus Christ.

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So I need the body to be with me. And actually I think it's enhanced my joy in getting to pursue apologetics and so forth.

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Yeah, amen. I mean, so I'll say this, you know, but I think you understand the point.

31:07

Jesus didn't die to establish apologetic ministries. Jesus died for the church and it is the church's,

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I would argue, responsibility to be concerned about apologetics. But if you try to do apologetics outside of the church, and I know some names,

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I won't even say, but I know some names and it's like, you've tried to do that and you failed. And well, part of the reason you failed is because God has a beautiful design in the church.

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And so why don't you talk, well, let's talk about that then, okay? So like, not every local church is going to, or even should try, but not every local church is going to have an apologetic dog ministry.

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You just can't, you know, it's not feasible. But every local church does have to care about apologetics, 1

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Peter 3 .15. So would you just speak maybe just an exhortation or man, if you need to rebuke us or whatever, but speak to your brother pastors who are in these small churches all across the world, really, but what is our responsibility?

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And practically, how do we think about apologetics? Yes, well,

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I like how you're emphasizing it has to be rooted in the church. That's who Christ died for, right? The Christian life should be lived through the assembly, the gathering together with the saints to live life together.

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And so me being a fellow pastor and elder, something I take very seriously is what

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Paul said in Ephesians 4 .11. Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the shepherds and the teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, right?

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It's for our building up, it's for our edification. And so when people look at the apologetic dog, that's just one version of what an outpouring, an outflow from 12 .5

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church ministry looks like. And so I wanna encourage people, apologetics is a form of evangelism and equipping the saints and defending the faith and contending for the faith.

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And so that's gonna look very different. You can have some people that are gifted in kind of that apologetic mindset and engaging in theological conversation, whether with those in the faith or evangelizing those outside the faith at the street level, right?

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Like you got street preachers. I would say that's definitely a kind of an apologetics ministry, but it's not just a one -size -fits -all.

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And so I wanna encourage pastors at their church, if you are exhorting and challenging your members to go deep in Scripture, you're giving sound doctrine reasons for why we hold

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God and His majesty and His sovereignty above all things and how we ought to live our lives in light of that, and we are taking time to equip them how to engage with an unbelieving culture,

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I would say praise God because apologetics is functionally being done to the saints.

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And so you may get a James White or something along the way where somebody is very gifted in equipping the saints in that particular way.

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So I just wanna encourage people that all that can be in different shapes and sizes, but yeah, that starts at the local church and you've got a game plan together with your leadership and your brothers and sisters in Christ that are in covenant membership with you.

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And then you'll figure out culturally where God has you, what that should look like.

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Sounds like to me, like one key role in this is just faithfully preaching the word of God.

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Is that - Absolutely. Sound right? Okay. Absolutely. Amen. Well, let me ask you this. What about the average church member?

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I just think about, you know, the construction worker who's surrounded by maybe nominal

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Christians or maybe atheists, the lady that's the teller at the bank and, you know, sometimes interacting with unbelievers.

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Would you have, or maybe even the student? Now, I doubt we have very many students, teenagers listening to this, but maybe some college students, like what would your exhortation be to them?

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So the pastor's got a responsibility to faithfully preach the word, equip his people to face the worldviews that are out there today.

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But what about the person in the pew? Would you give any counsel for them? Yeah, so we were looking at 1

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Peter 3 .15. That is for every Christian to be ready to give a defense.

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But the broader context is that is your life being worked out in front of other people.

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And so I think it's in a very charitable conversation where maybe an unbeliever looks at a

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Christian's life and asks, hey, why do you live that way? And so being equipped to firstly share the gospel, and that is doing apologetics, giving them a reason how

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God and His majesty and His mercy transformed your heart out of His goodness, not anything that you deserve, but compelled you to kiss the

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Son and to point to the beauties of Jesus Christ, how He's an amazing Savior that saves to the uttermost.

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And this is the big thing, Jesus can forgive your sin. That's why you should look to Him.

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You should trust in Him and not yourself or anything else in this world because He and He alone offers forgiveness of sin.

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And so being able to point to verses like Romans 5 .1 that says that we're justified by faith and that's what gives us peace.

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And so to encourage the lay person, that's giving a defense for our hope, but then asking, kind of contending for the faith and thinking apologetically, asking the unbeliever, how do you deal with a guilty conscience?

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Because we know they're made in the image of God. We know that they're suppressing the truth in their love for sin, but what do they do with a guilty conscience?

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And sometimes that helps get the ball rolling of them telling you, oh man,

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I don't deal with a guilty conscience. I hold it with me everywhere I go or I turn to all these vices that leave me empty inside.

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Well, now you get a perfect platform to just say, hey, here's how you can have peace with God. And so all that is wrapped up in apologetics.

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It's not just the highfalutin, scholastic, top tier people doing apologetics, but no, this should permeate the life of even

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Christians giving a defense for the gospel. Yeah, amen, that's good. I mean, and maybe in a pastoral exhortation

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I'd give too is sometimes we can get lost in the weeds and I think that there is a role and a place for men like Dr.

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White, for men like Jeremiah Nortier. I think there's a time and place for brothers, but sometimes what

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I'm trying to say is sometimes the average person in the pew can get kind of trapped or maybe, you know, people use

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Google now and hey, I don't know what's gonna happen. I tell you, brother, with AI out there now, I mean, people can try to come up with these tricky arguments real quick and catch you off guard.

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And I was thinking about in John 9 and the man that was blind and Jesus healed him.

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So I'm just gonna read 24 and 25. It says, so for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, give glory to God.

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We know that this man is a sinner. Verse 25, he answered, whether he's a sinner, I do not know.

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One thing I do know that though I was blind, now I see. So one exhortation

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I give is this. I'm not, certainly not encouraging ignorance and I'm not saying, hey, don't worry about theology.

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I'm just saying, look, sometimes people try to trap you or people try and keep the focus on Christ.

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And it's okay to say as a believer, you know what, you bring up that argument. I actually haven't studied that before.

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I don't know, but this I do know, Jesus Christ saved sinners. And if you'll repent and believe the gospel, you'll be saved.

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And then I would, but then I would encourage, if you find yourself trapped or you find yourself something you don't know, keep the focus on the gospel.

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But then when you leave, hey, why don't you study? Find the answer, you know? I mean,

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I don't know if you've, I'm not, you know, I'm not encouraging ignorance, but I'm just saying sometimes you can get distracted, your responsibilities point to Christ and then seek to grow in the areas that you need to grow in.

39:47

That's so good because, you know, Peter goes on in his second epistle. I believe it's 2 Peter 3, 18, but he's talking to the

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Christian to grow in the grace. So orthopraxy, right? Living with your brothers and sisters in Christ, being salt and light in this world, we are called to grow to Christian character, to grow in grace and the knowledge of our

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Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So orthodoxy, orthopraxy, they can flourish together because to your point,

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I'll talk to some people that, you know, turn on a debate and they'll immediately shut it off and say, that's not for me.

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I can't understand those things and they're discouraged from learning and growing. But scripture commands us to study the word, to show ourself approved and to grow in these things.

40:34

Now, I loved your point about you can always, this is a defense, appealing to your personal testimony and how

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God has shaped you. Now, scripture talks about, if indeed you have tasted and seen that the

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Lord is good. Yeah, I don't know the answer to everything, but I do know the one who knows all things.

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And so to your point, it's okay not to know the answer to every single question.

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Now, we're to be thoughtful, right? We're called to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, and mind.

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So we are called to be critical thinkers. But I loved your point. Just because we don't have every detailed answer to every question that's asked, that's okay because we are called to ultimately grow in sanctification.

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And that is spirit rod and God is even sovereign over that. So we should be encouraged, even when we don't know the answer to something because hopefully if you are a member of a healthy church, this hopefully will be an opportunity.

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Go seek out your leadership, men of God that are constantly in prayer and in the ministry of the word.

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And you have an accountability. You have a deep well of resources with your brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Well, I think for pastors and church members too, I'd also give this exhortation. You can't know everything and you can't study everything.

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And so you have to think about your context. I'll just give you an example at Perryville. Brother, if you go listen to our sermons,

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I would say in 99, probably 0 .9 % of the sermons, you won't really hear much about Hinduism.

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And there's a reason for that. Not because I don't think studying

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Hinduism and rebuking Hinduism and showing why Hinduism is false is not worthwhile.

42:23

It is. It certainly is worthwhile. But in not so much in Perry County, Arkansas, right?

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So if your context is if you're around Roman Catholics or you're around Jehovah's Witness or you're around Mormons or you're around atheists or you're around Muslims, like there should be something in your mind that says, you know what?

42:44

I should seek to get to know this system a little better in discernment under the authority of the church so that I can give an answer and not waste my time so much on things maybe that aren't in my context.

42:58

No, that is perfect because I do want to speak to this just a little bit. So what is heavily influenced in Jonesboro, Arkansas are the

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Church of Christ. And I'm telling you, a lot of people have friends that are Church of Christ or family members.

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And back when I was 21 and finally, like getting out into the community and sharing the gospel, figured out very quickly, interacting with Church of Christ, we use a lot of the same lingo, but mean very different things.

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And it's interesting because I'd be quick to quote Ephesians 2 .8, how we're ultimately saved by grace through faith and not of works.

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Well, the Church of Christ are quick to quote Acts 2 .38 or Acts 22 .16 or 1 Peter 3 .21 about how it's baptism that saves you.

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It's baptism that washes away your past sins. And so to your point, in my context of Jonesboro, Arkansas, I've really had to equip people how to interact with the

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Church of Christ and understand what they mean by certain phrases and how you can best communicate the gospel of grace to them.

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So that's one major area of emphasis for me is evangelizing the Church of Christ. And you may be surprised what the second and other big category that when you look up the apologetic dog, you see a lot of content.

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It's the area of hyper -preterism. So this is wild because people are like, what's a preterist?

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Like, what'd you call me? But full preterism, hyper -preterism says that all biblical prophecies were fulfilled in 70

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AD, including the great parrhesia, the return of Christ. They would say that happened at 70

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AD and it was a spiritual. Oh, the resurrection of the dead. That also was in the past. That was fulfilled at 70

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AD and the restoration of all things, heaven and earth. That's already been fulfilled in the past.

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And so that has creeped up, Pastor Allen, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and I've had people knocking on my door saying,

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Jeremiah, what do we say to these arguments where these people start with odd proof texts and say all these things would be fulfilled in this generation with the

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Olivet Discourse? And so I got challenged on my eschatology and really had to study the opposition out.

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And when we were preaching through the Sermon on the Mount, you get to chapter seven with ravenous wolves will creep in, you'll know them by their fruits.

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Well, we saw this as a moment to call out false teachers by name who have been trying to reach our members of our church and redefine

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Christianity as we know it. And so at the time, a lot of our members felt uncomfortable about us calling out names.

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We're saying, no, no, this is on our home turf. They are creeping in unawares, as Jude talks about, and we're trying to warn you to stay away from this gangrenous doctrine.

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So does that make sense though, being sensitive to your own culture and your own people's needs? Amen, yeah.

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And for the love of the Lord and the glory of His name and the good of souls in your area, like you can't just sit on this and be like, well, people figure,

46:06

I mean, this is part of, you know, all this kind of goes together, discipleship, apologetics, evangelism.

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And I'd just make this plug about apologetics is ultimately if you go into apologetics and you're like, my goal here is to win arguments, you're gonna, well, you're gonna come up short or I might say this, or worse, you may succeed.

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And because the goal is, we want to see God's truth honored and we wanna see, that's why

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I've heard you so many times in this episode, bring it back to the gospel. If you're doing apologetics apart from the gospel, you're doing it wrong.

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So it's not just about, hey, this is what's true, but this is what's true. And this is why it matters to you because one day you're gonna give an account to the

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God who made you, who commands all men everywhere to repent. Yeah, there's another key passage that has made a huge impression on me and I can encourage the listener.

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Second, Timothy chapter two, which he's all, this is the same chapter where Paul is telling

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Timothy, watch out for Hymenaeus and Philetus that said that the resurrection already happened. But continuing in the context, this is to the

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Christian, the lay person, not just the leadership and people of scholasticism.

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But in the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. So like you said, not just arguing for arguing sake and trying to win points and trying to bolster yourself.

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The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone. I remember

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Peter said to give a defense with gentleness and respect, but be kind to everyone, able to teach patiently enduring evil.

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But that doesn't mean we don't do this next part, correcting his opponents with gentleness.

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And here's kind of the key and it kind of brings it back to the sovereignty of God. And when we go back to the gospel, that God may grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.

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Ultimately, we are called to sow seeds, we are called to water and cultivate, but it is

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God that gives the increase, right? It is God that grants repentance and faith and we pray for that and he uses means, right?

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So we faithfully articulate the gospel, we defend the faith to the best of our ability, but God is the one that ultimately gives repentance.

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And then this goes on to say that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil.

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And that's important to highlight because spiritual warfare. Ephesians 2 talks about how Satan is at work through the sons of disobedience.

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So they need truth, they need to hear the truths of the gospel, they need to hear the beauties of Christ and perhaps

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God will call them out of it. So I can rest easy knowing that our labors for the gospel and apologetics is never in vain.

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God's word never returns empty. Amen, that's good there too, correct his opponents in gentleness.

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Gentleness does not mean lack of correction. And sometimes we can, these words that come out today, or they're not new words, but they're used today.

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You gotta be winsome, you gotta have nuance. And some people are so winsome and so nuanced, they never get to correcting.

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And if you're not correcting, then you're not being obedient to what the scripture says. So anyway,

49:26

I think that was a good point that you said there. Look brother, man, we've had a great show.

49:32

I hope good conversation, hope it's been helpful. Maybe we'll have you back on sometime, but any kind of, so we've talked, anything else you feel like you need to get off your chest or come to your mind, concluding thoughts?

49:44

You know, people say like, hey, I'm interested Jeremiah in apologetics. I tell them, okay, this needs to be first and primary is get plugged into a local, healthy church, because then you're able to have

50:00

Christian fellowship and you can talk to leadership and get their insights to what that looks like.

50:05

And then also encourage people to be a lifelong learner, understanding that the fear of the

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Lord is the beginning of knowledge. So I believe it was Charles Spurgeon that said traverse many books, but live in the scriptures.

50:20

And so that's what I wanna leave people with is ultimate at the end of the day, dive deep into God's word and to love it, love the journey and to trust in His sovereignty.

50:31

Amen. Okay, give us again your YouTube. So your

50:36

YouTube channel is Apologetic Dog. Right, The Apologetic Dog. You can find most, you can find all of my archived content over the past few years.

50:45

And I encourage people to go check out theapologeticdog .com. I have a team working on a website over there and I do appreciate support from people.

50:55

Obviously prayers, firstly, just pray for me in the trenches, especially contending against the kingdom of darkness.

51:02

And there are those that wanna help, support in other ways. And so my website is just a way for you to see all the options that are available out there.

51:10

Yeah, I'll just give a plug for that, defense of that. So sometimes there are men that God raises up in churches that have a gifting and have ability to do things that the rest of us don't.

51:26

And so it's like, okay, I'm not gonna be able to go out there and debate the church of Christ or set up the things with the

51:32

Roman Catholic debate or all those things, but I can pray for and support someone who is doing that.

51:38

And so that would just be a small defense I would give toward that so they can check that out. Give that website one more time.

51:46

Yep, theapologeticdog .com and the sweet spot is my YouTube channel where just look for the bearded dog.

51:53

Perfect. The reform beard. Well, you may not be able to say if there's, I don't know, but do you have any events at 12 .5

52:01

that we should know about in future debates, anything coming up? I will say this. So yeah, we got some things cooking that we can't announce yet.

52:10

But Pastor Nathan and I, after that weekend of just an extravaganza of two debates and having

52:16

Dr. White come and preach, we said, you know, because we were just dog tired, we said, you know what?

52:23

We proved to ourselves is that we can host a conference. And so we have a lot of ideas and projects.

52:30

And so if people want to stay up to date, you can also go to 12 .5church .com and 12 .5

52:36

has a YouTube channel as well where we always post content. We post announcements on Facebook and things like that.

52:42

So I just want to encourage our listeners, maybe subscribe to 12 .5 and the Apologetic Dog and then you'll receive updates of future events.

52:50

Cool, brother. Thank you for sharing with that. I hope you guys were edified today. Thank you guys for joining us on this week of the

52:57

World Church Podcast. Catch you next week. If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what

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God's doing. This is His work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the poemos, the masterpiece of God.