March 10, 2025 Show with Jeremiah Nortier on “The Great Value of Apologetics & Public, Moderated Theological Debates”

Live from historic downtown Carlisle, Pennsylvania, home of founding father James Wilson, 19th century hymn writer George Duffield, 19th century gospel minister George Norcross, and sports legend Jim Thorpe.

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Good afternoon, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet Earth who are listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on this tenth day of March 2025.

I'm thrilled to have a first-time guest today, you know, and I'm so stupid I forgot to make sure I was pronouncing his name correctly before we went on the air, but I believe it's Jeremy Nortier. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right.

He'll let me know in a second. He is the host of the Apologetic Dog podcast. He is a debater, and he is pastor, or one of the pastors, at 12 -5 Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Today we're going to be addressing the theme, The Great Value of Apologetics and Public Moderated Theological Debates, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Pastor Jeremiah Nortier.

Chris, thank you so much for having me on. And am I pronouncing the name correctly? You said Jeremy. I'm gonna give you a pass. Here I am worried about your last name, and I mispronounced your.

First name. That's okay, and Dr. James Watt gives me a hard time because my last name in the South, we pronounce it Nortier, but it is French, so technically it's supposed to be Nortier, so like I said, he gives me a hard time for that.

Yeah, well, the Americans have long mispronounced French names, like nobody in France is gonna call their church Notre Dame, and so we could go on and on and on with that, but so forgive me for getting your first name wrong, because I knew your first name, and I don't know why I said Jeremy.

The Apologetic Dog, 12-5 Church, and a Salvation Testimony

Well, tell us about your podcast and the name, which is fascinating. Not only the name of your podcast is fascinating, but the name of your church.

Is fascinating, but tell us about the Apologetic Dog. Yes, well, I started the Apologetics Ministry about three years ago, and I started doing online debates and did one in-person debate in my hometown against a church of Christ over baptism, and I was starting to get a lot of feedback and consulting with the elders at my church.

We kind of said, hey, we need to make a ministry with a name, with a logo, just so people can better come check out your stuff, and you can archive sermons, lectures, discussions, interviews, all that, and so Pastor Nathan Hargrave said, hey, go think about a name, and so I remember talking with my wife, and we were bouncing around ideas, and I liked Doctrines of Grace, so D-O-G, so that kind of got the idea rolling of dog, and then I remember my wife said, hey, what about the Apologetic Dog, and I was like, babe, that's excellent, so I didn't want it to be purely the Doctrines of Grace, the Five Points of Calvinism and Soteriology, even though that's super important, I wanted it to be a little bit broader, and so if people look me up at theapologeticdog .com or my YouTube channel, you'll see First Timothy 620 kind of embedded in the logo, and that's kind of my mission verse, where Paul tells Timothy, oh, Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you, and so I thought, okay, I want it to be a guard dog mentality, Christians guarding the Gospel of Grace, contending for the faith, so apologetics is both offense and defense, and Chris, I play a little basketball, so I know a little bit of thing about offense and defense, so that's about three years ago, the Apologetic Dog took off, and so we tried to find a dog that could fit the beard, the Reformed beard, and so we landed on kind of that Pitbull graphic, and so one thing led to another, and we were able to hire a graphic designer, and so that became the Apologetics Ministry, contending for the Gospel of Grace, and we do so by avoiding pagan philosophy, irreverent babble, and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, so if you go look at First Timothy 620, that's the rest of that verse, and so a lot of my days, I spend reading and researching, studying in the apologetic world, but I also pastor at 12 .5 Church, and I've even had people, Chris, ask me, what's a 12 .5?

Does that mean the five points of Calvinism, 12 months of the year? And I said, well, kind of, but no, that also comes from a Bible verse, Romans 12, verse five, that talks about how we are individually one of another, but ultimately we are one together in Christ, and so we are, oh goodness, a four-year church plant, almost four and a half years in Jonesboro, Arkansas, Northeast Arkansas, and Chris, it has been an absolute honor to serve with Pastor Nathan, Pastor Keith, the members of 12 .5, those that God has so graciously brought, we are having a fantastic journey with one another.

And the website for 12 .5 Church is the word125church .com.

Excellent, absolutely.

That's the word 12, the numeral 5, and then the word church .com. I was wondering if the name of the church came from 12 Apostles, Five Loaves of Bread, that would be leaving out the two fish, so it would have been more appropriately named 12 .5 .2 Church, if that was the case.

In fact, I'm insisting you change the name, because I like my story better.

I'll throw it in the pot with the other elders, and we'll see what comes out the other end.

And I also have an idea for a slogan for the apologetic dog, debate me and become a fire hydrant.

Oh, no, I love it. We're going to have to get some more graphics with the fire hydrant.

Well, anyway, we have a tradition on Iron Trip and Zion Radio, whenever we have a first-time guest, we have that guest give a summary of their salvation testimony, including the religious atmosphere, if any, that the individual was raised in, and the kinds of providential circumstances that the Lord rose up in their lives that drew them to himself and saved them.

And I'd love to hear a summary of your story.

Absolutely, Chris. Well, I grew up in an evangelical household, Southern Baptist. So I grew up hearing that Jesus is Lord, the gospel of grace my whole life. And so thinking as far back as I can, those things were kind of never in question in my mind.

But I remember I was 14 years old and I saw a friend get baptized and something struck me in his baptism where something was real about his faith. I was merely a fan of Christ, but not a follower. And so that led to a conversation with one of the pastors about baptism and how it relates to salvation.

And so I was 14 and my father called the senior pastor of this church to our house and he shared the gospel. And I knew this information, but for the first time it struck my heart. I remember being convicted over my sin, just in tears, Chris.

And the sweet name of Jesus was the only thing that I could think about and how I loved him. And I truly wanted to submit my life to him and surrender it all and follow him for the first time. And so I was 14 years old where I was born again.

God saved me by a sovereign grace and the light switch came on. And so I was 14, I was about junior high. I still struggled with many idols in my life. And I remember little to no sanctification until I was about 21.

I was in college. Some of those idols were sports, dating. And I went through a horror experience in college. I had my heart broken. And so I remember crying out to the Lord, like, Hey, use me. I've been living my life for myself, even though I do love Christ and I'm trusting in him wholeheartedly, but I could tell it wasn't being used.

So 21 is where I really feel like God providentially was setting the stage to really sanctify me and set me apart. Even though I was a child of, of God by faith alone in Christ alone, but 21 hit. And so, um, I went, I was a camp counselor at Canico camps and, um, let's see, um, in Missouri.

And so it was during this time, I really got to spend time alone in the word. And I remember calling my dad, studying the gospel of John and just saying, Hey, how do I know what, what verses apply to me?

And he said this kind of remarkable thing to me back then when I was 21. He just said, Hey, we study for principles. And I was like, okay, that helps me a little bit here. I'm, I'm on the quest for principles.

And so I fell in love with the gospel of John. I actually memorized the whole book of James, all 108 verses. And I didn't know what faith without works is dead, what that means, uh, theologically, but I knew I needed the word of God, uh, written on my heart, uh, to have true relationship with him.

And so over the next few years in college, um, I felt the call to ministry. And so that's why I wanted to share this story is through the, through college. I was that student in business calculus, um, in the back studying the sermon on the Mount rather than, uh, everything else that was going on.

And so a few years later, I met my beautiful bride, Allie Mortier. Um, told her that I felt the call to ministry and she has been my biggest supporter ever since. And so I got my first job, uh, as a youth pastor.

Um, I'm trying to think how old I, how old I was. I was probably 23, 24 in that time range. And so I learned a lot of the, the hardships in ministry right out of the gate for the next two years. And so God called me to another church.

Once again, felt a lot of the hardships in the Southern Baptist, uh, world, uh, definitely becoming reformed and seeing the sovereignty of God put on display in my life. And so from that church led to me, uh, partnering with Pastor Nathan Hargrave and planting 12 Five Church, Chris, in the year of 2020 during the COVID is when we planned.

Cool. Well, praise God for that. Uh, well, I'm going to give our listeners our email address. If they have questions, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. C-H-R-I-S-A-R-N-Z-E-N at gmail .com. As always, give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous. If your question involves a personal and private matter. Uh, so, uh, our theme of the day is the great value of apologetics. And, uh, the, uh, the importance, uh, and great value of public moderated theological debates.

There is some debate over the importance of debates. Um, uh, I have had, uh, people who have been very nasty to me for having debates. They think it involves innately some kind of hate speech and nastiness.

Uh, I can even remember here in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, uh, arranging a theological debate on, uh, the immaculate conception and perpetual, uh, sinlessness of Mary. Uh, between my dear friend, Dr. Tony Costa, uh, who is an apologist and at one time the professor of apologetics and Islam at Toronto Baptist Seminary.

He's moved on to a different school right now.

Uh, but by the way, Chris, I had Tony on my channel, um, a few weeks ago, we discussed baptismal regeneration in the early church fathers. Oh, wow.

Oh, I got to listen to that. He's a dear friend. Uh, but, uh, he was debating another friend of mine who I do not consider a brother in Christ, but he's a friend nonetheless, Robert St. Genes, who's a Roman Catholic apologist.

And, uh, I contacted the head of the religion department at Dickinson college, which is a prestigious school right here in my hometown, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, named after one of the signers of the declaration of independence.

Um, John Dickinson, who was a Quaker. And, uh, the, uh, the head of the religion department said that he would have nothing to do with this debate. Uh, I, I told him that it would be a great thing to invite his students to.

And he said, there was no way that I would invite my students to such a horrible, hateful thing that harkens back to the days when we were burning each other alive at the stake over our differences. And I said, how can you even remotely get that, uh, explanation or description of debates, uh, when you, you have two people being represented in a, in the debates, uh, it's not one sided.

And I always assure that the debates that I orchestrate are academic. Of course they do get heated at points, not all of them, but some of them especially if you're involving Roberts and Janice, but there is no fomenting of hate in these events.

Uh, so, uh, I was very dismayed by this man's response, especially since colleges and universities were built on debates. That's where the term collegiate debate comes from. Uh, uh, so a tragedy that, uh, that is a growing sentiment, especially among those, uh, who are leftists.

They don't really want debates. They just want to give their side of the story and condemn the other side, uh, which is more reflective of the slanderous description this man gave. Um, but, uh, before I even have you comment on that, why don't you explain what apologetics is?

Because there's some confusion about that. I remember just recently hearing a celebrity who had become a born again believer, uh, say, I don't like that term apologetics. It sounds like you're apologizing for something you believe, but that's not at all.

Why don't you, uh, tell us about that and then respond, uh, to what I said about, uh, debates about, uh, the, the, the stereotype that they are nothing but contests and hate speech.

Yes, I get a lot of those same questions as well. And it's a good opportunity to explain biblically what we mean by debating that. I would say that is something within the biblical worldview and not like what Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and presidential debates have unfortunately turned into as just hurling insults to one another.

But starting with, uh, apologetics, this is a biblical term. And so kind of the number one apologetics verse goes back to first Peter 315, where Peter says, but in your hearts, honor Christ, the Lord is holy, always being prepared to make an apologia or, um, a defense for the hope that is in you that you may do it with gentleness and respect.

And so this is not for professional Christian theologians, all Christians are supposed to live their life in such a way where people see that, see how you're living to the glory of God and ask you, Hey, why are you doing that?

Our lives should, uh, naturally give us opportunities to be able to share the faith and when people have questions of why, we give them a reason, we tell them about, uh, our gracious Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and how he saved us out of the depravity of our sin and forgave us in total and full, uh, giving us forgiveness of sins.

And now we have a personal relationship with our creator God by faith alone in his name. And so, yeah, to give a defense for the faith, uh, that is kind of the defensive aspect of apologetics. But as Jude verse three says that we also must contend for the faith once delivered to the saints.

And so, um, what that means is we ask people that oppose Christianity questions, but as Peter said, we do it with gentleness and respect. And so we're not mean about it, Chris. We love others enough to share with them the truth.

And as Peter also said, we are sanctifying the Lord in our hearts. And so we're, we're constantly having Christ at the forefront of our minds and we want to honor him with our speech. Paul also says, I believe in Ephesians 4, 15, that we speak the truth in love.

And so another passage that is for all Christians, not just debaters that are professionals or, you know, these highfalutin theologians, uh, Paul tells Timothy in second Timothy chapter two, verse 24, and the Lord's servant, Christians must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone.

So there is a kind of interaction with people that is quarrelsome and does not benefit the hearers. That is a vain arguing for arguing's sake. Earlier in that context, uh, we are actually told to do our best to present ourselves to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.

And so quarreling is bad when it's vain, when it's pointed inward, when it's just trying to win arguments for the sake of being right versus being kind to everyone to vindicate the truth of God. And here's, here's what this passage goes on to say, able to teach them patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with the gentleness that God perhaps may grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.

And so apologetics touches on all of those things, but it's being a faithful steward of God to, uh, love people enough to share with them the gospel, to defend it, uh, because we should be willing to die for our faith, uh, in Christ.

And something that I've heard Dr. White say many times on The Dividing Line is Christianity is a death march. Um, and I, and I love that imagery because anything that this world has to offer is one day going to be burned up.

And so we, we should be willing to die for these truths. Death is but merely a door that ushers us into everlasting glory with our Savior. So apologetics is a good thing. We're not just walking around apologizing like we're sad all the time.

No, we're actually playing offense and defense, and we're actually contending for the faith. And so this isn't something new and innovative. You know, you, you kind of said it's a leftist culture that kind of, you know, cast debating in a negative light.

And the last debate that I participated in, uh, Pastor Nathan kind of opened with a welcome and he reminded everybody we live in a feminized culture. And so, um, as the book of Ephesians says, we are actually redeeming the time.

Um, we want to live for the glory of God and, and, and truth is grounded in the God of truth, the triune God who has spoken and revealed himself. So we don't have to apologize in a sad sense to everyone.

No, but we can contend for these truths and we can give a robust, sound defense because ultimately our apologetics is rooted in the God of truth who has spoken. Jesus said, father, sanctify them and the truth, your word is truth.

So when people tell me, Chris, yeah, debating is kind of archaic. It's out of date. It only divides the hearers. I'm quick to tell people, look, the truth does divide. Yeah, I could say truth does divide, but it unites those who are being saved by God's grace.

Something else I'd point to, Chris, is when you look in the book of Acts, debated is biblical, debating is biblical. Yeah. Yep. Uh, Apollos, right. Even going back to Mars Hill and we push it back to the Jerusalem council.

Uh, you have the Judaizers essentially corrupting the gospel of grace. And then verse two says, uh, Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension, but debated with the Judaizers that were implementing the Mosaic law and works to, uh, the gospel of grace.

And so they debated. And as you were saying, you know, in Acts 17, we see Paul's even contending for the gospel of grace with Jews in the synagogues. And he's doing that by appealing to the word of God.

Um, and then ultimately saying, Hey, even the noble Bereans tested all these things according to the word of God day and night. And to see that these things were true. So do you want to chime in there?

I was just going to say. Acts 18, 28 says Apollos boldly and publicly confronted the Jews, vigorously debating them, proving undeniably from the scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

And that's exactly the pattern that our Lord set. Also, um, no doubt John the Baptist and the prophets of old. And so I just, I try to tell people, I probably agree with you. There is a kind of debating that I'm not interested in.

I'm not interested in trying to just hear myself talk and arguing for the sake of arguing. But there's a biblical kind of debating where we are defending the gospel, gospel of grace, guarding it with our whole hearts, sanctifying Jesus as Lord in our hearts and proclaiming truth.

And so that's the kind of debating I'm into.

Yeah. And I don't think that anybody could, uh, in their right minds accuse you personally of, of hateful debating, because you have one of the most outwardly gracious and humble approaches to debate that I've ever seen.

I mean, you're just a, in general, a very humble and gracious and kind person, uh, from what I've seen in public anyway, in your, in your video, uh, presentations, so they would be slandering you for that.

Well, it's just true. I mean, anybody who sees you will get that impression. Uh, and, uh, so, uh, yeah. What about the, the argument? I have a very dear friend who's now in heaven, Richard Bennett. I don't know if you had ever heard of Richard Bennett, but he was, uh, a well-known convert from Roman Catholicism to Reformed Christianity.

He actually was a Roman Catholic priest, a Jesuit priest from Ireland who was, uh, sent to Trinidad where he was a Roman Catholic priest and he was in a serious automobile accident and the experience, uh, led him to cry out to the Lord, he got saved and eventually became a Reformed Baptist evangelist and apologist and started Berean Beacon Ministries.

And he was a dear friend of mine. And I interviewed him a number of times, set up speaking engagements for him. And we were very close. He even supported my radio program financially, even though he was not by any stretch of the imagination, a wealthy man, uh, and a dear friend who I miss dearly.

But, uh, uh, Richard Bennett did not believe in debates because he believed you were giving a platform to an enemy of the gospel, uh, to draw an audience. And, you know, they would therefore hear the false gospel of the, uh, heretic that was involved.

Now, obviously there are some debates that are in the house between brothers in Christ. I don't know if Richard would have been opposed to those. I don't think so. But, but he was definitely opposed to my debates with Catholics.

He has a, because he was a Catholic himself before converting by God's mercy. Um, he just had such a disdain for the Roman Catholic religion, not the people, but the Roman Catholic religion that he just thought it was, uh, a very bad thing.

So if you could, uh, defend debates in that context where that is a, that is an argument against them, that you're giving a platform to an enemy of the gospel.

I first tell people my savior sits on a throne and I ain't scared. And I mean that, I mean to say that I'm not scared about people being duped and me losing some type of grasp on people that I'm close to and, and all that.

Now, obviously I'm a pastor. I want to be discerning. I want to guard the flock. And, um, I definitely do those things, you know, day in and day out with the saints, especially on the Lord's day. But like we were just talking about next, there is a context for Paul going into Mars Hill and heralding the gospel of grace.

And so I am not like, like when I talk to young men that hear Roman Catholic arguments appealing to the unity of the early church fathers, the fact that they are now challenged with a hard to deal concept does not rattle me because I know he who begins a good work is going to be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ's return.

And so I can boldly, not because I'm so great, but because my savior is so great, is go into the, the lion's den, these other places or have, you know, essentially some of these false teachers, uh, they're going to show their fangs by the way.

Um, but, but our labor is never in vain. So I don't share this mentality that I am somehow scared, right? That so many people are going to be shook. To me, this is going to be a good time of testing for them and their faith.

Uh, not that God needs to know if their faith is real and genuine, but, uh, the individuals, they need to be challenged with arguments from scripture, from history to see if their faith is genuine or if it's going to reveal something deeper that's on the inside.

Now, here's where I empathize a little bit, Chris, with somebody like, uh, your dear friend that passed away. Um, I don't have that experience of coming out of a false religion. And so I think it's going to trigger some things in their life that they maybe don't like to be reminded of.

And I'm very sympathetic with that. Maybe by God's grace, you know, I grew up in an evangelical home, so I don't share some of these, uh, these triggers maybe that other brothers in the Lord have, and I will say this, I think you, you'll agree with me here, I don't think debating is for everyone.

And I'd tell people if it's not for you, don't watch it.

It's definitely not for everyone as a participant, because there are people who participate in debates that definitely should never be doing that.

Yes.

And so when people say, well, then why are you doing it, Jeremy? I'm like, well, depending on the topic, it can be evangelistic the way that we see it in the book of Acts. We see Paul saying, speak the truth in love.

And so if I'm, so I have debated with a number of Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, that's a, that's a platform for me to challenge them on the consistency between the relationship between faith and works.

Guess what? They're not going to be consistent within that. Uh, I debate church of Christ. They're going to use the word obey as a catch all word and they can get away with anything.

Right.

But until we open up to Romans four and asking questions like, who is the blessed man? So it's evangelistic and it's educational for the hearers, those that have ears to hear. So does that make sense, Chris?

I get that debating is not for everyone, but it is a huge opportunity to herald the gospel of grace.

Amen. Well, we have to go to our first commercial break. If you have a question of your own, once again, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Give us your first name at least. City and state and country of residence.

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So please don't forget mom this Mother's Day, and don't forget those you love for Easter either. Go to RoyalDiadem .com today and mention Iron Sharpens Iron radio. But we're now back with Pastor Jeremiah Nortier.

He is known as the Apologetic Dog, and he is also one of the pastors of 12 -5 Church, a confessional Reformed Baptist Church in Jonesboro, Arkansas. If you have questions about apologetics and debates, send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us a first name at least, city and state, and country of residence. Please tell me and our listeners how you first were introduced to the concept of public theological debates.

I personally was in the 1980s watching the John Ankerberg show, but where did you where did you discover this?

So definitely through YouTube back in the early days and 100 watching James White, Dr. White, and William Lane Craig. Those are kind of my two role models, if you will, just seeing Christians not afraid to debate atheists about the existence of God.