Teaching Tuesday | Lesson 4: Intro to Apologetics with John Cueto

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in your life, text CHANGEME to 9700. Thank you

and enjoy the message. Welcome to the Teaching

Tuesday session for April 2025. Today we're doing

an introduction to apologetics, and I do mean

introduction because we are just barely scratching

the surface of a huge field to which many people

dedicate their entire lives. We'll start with

some basics, like what apologetics means and

why it's relevant for you and the people in your

life. Then we'll look at an example argument

or two from several of the big apologetic categories,

like why we think God exists or how we can square

up a good God with the existence of evil. One

big difference between this session and other

sessions is that instead of a single recommended

resource, I'll be recommending a book for each

of the categories. Speaking of which, I'm going

to start with the definition of apologetics from

the book Stand Firm by Paul Gould, Travis Dickinson,

and Keith Lofton. This is a fantastic general

introduction to apologetics that does something

very similar to what I'm doing today. It's a

survey of many common questions about and objections

to Christianity. They define apologetics as an

attempt to remove obstacles or doubts to, as

well as offer positive reasons for, believing

that Christianity is true and satisfying. I really

like their definition because it touches on an

important point. People like to think of themselves

as rational, so we should be able to believe

something if we know it to be true. Unfortunately,

people are less rational than they'd like to

think. Something needs to be both true and mentally,

emotionally, and spiritually satisfying for most

people to embrace it. Jesus knew this, which

is why he told people that the most important

commitment was to love God with their entire

soul, entire mind, and entire heart in Matthew

22 -37. If we want to do apologetics correctly,

we don't just prevent facts. We have to appeal

to the person mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

And I want to address a popular misconception

about apologetics. If you ask the average person

what they see when they picture apologetics in

their mind, it's probably two old guys in suits

on a stage having a debate about stuff that's

so far out there, you'd need an entire library

to understand any of it. Now, being a giant nerd,

I do enjoy watching these sorts of debates in

my free time, but that is one tiny piece of the

giant apologetics pie. So if you take one thing

away from this talk, it's that apologetics belongs

in every Christian's toolbox. Let's say you read

something in the Old Testament that doesn't sit

right with you. Like God ordering the Israelites

to wipe out the Canaanites. If you don't deal

with the nagging problem in the back of your

mind, it could kill your faith over time. We're

going to talk about that one tonight. Or maybe

you've got a friend that doesn't believe that

God exists or a relative that doesn't think the

Bible is trustworthy. Maybe a co -worker calls

you out on your faith in front of a crowd because

they don't like what the Bible says about sex

or marriage. We're going to talk about all of

these things tonight because apologetics gives

you the tools to research and answer those questions

and the confidence to do so. And finally, before

we look at the objections, we want to ask a question

that you should always ask when someone prescribes

a certain action or interpretation regarding

our faith. Is it biblical? A friend of mine used

to attend a church that took bus rides out into

the mountains where they would ring bells to

attract angels. I probably don't need to tell

you that not one bit of that is biblical. But

in the case of apologetics, we are building from

a solid foundation. We've got an explicit command

to do apologetics in 1 Peter 3 .15, which reads,

If someone asks about your hope as a believer,

always be ready to explain it. We've also got

great examples in the way Jesus and the apostles

dealt with people and answered questions. It

turns out that the way we carry ourselves is

just as important as the information we're providing,

and we'll come back to that at the very end.

Let's jump right in with objection number one,

that truth doesn't exist. Ironically, the type

of person attending this session or listening

to it later online is the least likely to think

this way. So you might find this perspective

truly strange, but you're in good company because

until the 1960s, very few people would have expressed

that sentiment. However, since then, two schools

of thought promoting just the idea have become

very popular. They're called postmodernism and

relativism. Now, as interesting as going deep

on postmodernism and relativism can be, it's

a bit outside the scope of this session. Instead,

let me give you some examples of postmodern or

relativist thought. You may hear people say things

like, there's no such thing as objective truth.

Or, if there is objective truth, we can't know

what it is. They may say, everyone has their

own truth, which is correct to them. You may

have heard the term lived experience before.

People will say things like, someone's lived

experience matters more than objective truth.

You may even hear the claim, although most people

who have these views are atheists, sometimes

you will hear people say that all religions lead

to God. This is incredibly common in non -Christian

colleges and schools, and it's leading to serious

problems in our society. One example is the debate

about transgenderism that seems to have popped

out of nowhere over the past couple years. But

think about it. If there's no such thing as objective

truth, then no one could be objectively male

or female. And so if some 40 -year -old guy says

that his truth is that he's an 8 -year -old girl,

well, then his truth is that he should get to

share a changing room or a bathroom with your

8 -year -old daughter. Obviously, we know that's

not true because we recognize that there is objective

truth. Now, we're also trying to establish Christianity

as true. So if someone doesn't believe in truth,

that's going to preempt every other piece of

information we have to share. Furthermore, Christianity,

in Judaism up to Jesus, is the only religion

that makes provable real -world and historical

claims. But if I was finding archaeological evidence

that supports the Bible, And there is a ton of

it out there and more being discovered every

year. If that's just our truth to someone instead

of the objective truth, that's a huge roadblock.

They could just completely ignore it and that's

fine in their mind. Now the good news is this

type of thought is self -defeating. Most people

grow out of it once they get out of college and

into the real world because it just doesn't survive

being in the real world. You know, if someone

tells you that there's no such thing as objective

truth, ask them if that's true. If they say yes,

they just contradicted themselves. If they say

no, why would they believe that in the first

place? Or if someone works, ask them what might

happen if they tell the IRS that their truth

is that they don't have to pay taxes. The IRS

agent is probably going to laugh and respond

that his truth is wage garnishment and property

seizure. Now that we can state things as true,

let's do that response to objection to. that

God doesn't exist. You might hear it expressed

like that, God doesn't exist, or someone might

say that God doesn't need to exist. They might

argue that we can't prove God exists, or that

there's no evidence God exists. Well, if we're

defending Christianity, then God existing is

a pretty big deal. It's probably the first question

we need to answer after proving that objective

truth exists. Fortunately, there are dozens of

good arguments for God's existence that span

many different fields and will appeal to different

people. I'd like you to experience just how different

these approaches are, so we're going to argue

for God's existence first from philosophy and

then from science. We're going to turn to another

general purpose apologetics book called I Don't

Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist by Frank Turek

and Norman Geisler to help us in this. You know,

this book is full of great information, and once

you start reading, it's hard to stop. It's one

you'll probably polish off in an entire afternoon.

Plus, Frank Church goes around to college campuses

giving presentations on Christianity, so he's

heard every question and objection anyone could

possibly raise, and he's a great resource and

model for how you should conduct yourself when

you're really under fire from somebody. We'll

start with that philosophical argument. Now,

philosophy is the study of knowledge. Philosophers

try to understand what we know and how we know

these things. One of the ways they do this is

through thought experiments, and Christian philosophers

have devised a thought experiment that points

to God's existence. It's called the moral argument,

and it goes like this. First, if objective morality

exists, an objective moral lawgiver, God, exists.

Second point, objective morality does exist.

Third point, therefore, God exists. To really

drive the point home, apologists will often pick

an extreme example, like, is it ever morally

justifiable to torture babies for fun? That's

not a claim that atheists can't be good people

or that atheists can't know right from wrong.

It's simply an acknowledgment that there are

some things that are objectively wrong, no matter

what any society says. For instance, the Allies

were justified in stopping the Axis in World

War II because of the atrocities they committed.

even if those atrocities were legal and accepted

in those societies. Now, these philosophical

arguments are very polarizing. Some people find

them to be the most convincing, whereas others

see them as total nonsense. I'm curious what

your response is to hearing the moral argument.

If you're in that latter category, perhaps the

next argument will be more helpful. Our science

-based argument for God's existence is called

the fine -tuning of the universe. Put simply,

the universe appears to be precisely designed

for life to such a low degree of probability

that it is essentially impossible that it happened

by chance. To simplify this and give you just

a few examples, we can look at gravity. You know,

if gravity was higher or lower by 1 over 10 to

the 38th of a percent in either direction, we

couldn't have stars, planets, or life. If the

expansion rate of space was 1 over 10 to the

5th of a percent faster, we wouldn't have galaxies.

If it was slower by the same amount, the entire

universe would have collapsed in on itself. There

are similar probabilities and consequences for

the strength of the strong and weak nuclear forces

inside atoms, the strength of the electromagnetic

force, the temperatures chemical reactions happen

at, and many other things. And it also turns

out that Earth itself seems precisely designed.

If the chemical composition of the atmosphere,

the amount of water, the rotational period, the

axial tilt, or even Jupiter's size and orbit

differed by minuscule amounts, life would be

impossible. When we put together the probabilities

that we know about, and we discover new ones

constantly, we can calculate that the chance

of life naturally occurring on a single planet

in the entire universe is less than 1 over 10

to the 138th. For context, there are 10 to the

70th atoms in the universe. That means the chance

of life occurring naturally on a single planet

in the entire universe is the same as finding

one particular atom in one universe, and that

atom contains an entire universe in itself, one

particular atom in that universe. That is an

unimaginably small probability. You know, Geisler

and Turek named their book the way they did because

it takes more faith to believe all of this happened

by chance than through an intelligent designer.

And in a few months, we're also going to do a

full session on the arguments for God's existence.

So let me give you a sneak preview of another

fine -tuning argument. When we look inside our

bodies, the probabilities of the molecular machines

and processes we observe occurring naturally

are even lower than those properties of the universe.

In fact, there are a number of these structures

and processes that are impossible to evolve naturally.

When you add these to the low probabilities about

the fine -tuning of the universe, it is essentially

impossible that there wasn't a mind behind it

all. Our answers to the first two objections

weren't specific to Christianity. But now it's

time that we get specific to Christianity. And

that brings us to objection three, which says

that the Bible isn't trustworthy. Now, we're

not talking about the information in the Bible

not being trustworthy. That's objection number

four. We're talking about the book itself. The

collection of writings that we have that claim

that they are not trustworthy. For instance,

people might say that we don't have the original

text. That what we are reading are things that

people wrote later or changed. They might say

that even if we do have the original text, we're

reading a translation of a translation of a translation

of a translation of a translation of a translation

of a translation, and that we can't trust a chain

of 50 or 100 translations. And then finally,

some people might say, even if the translation

is good, It was all made up in the first place.

Fortunately for us, we've got a book called The

Word, How We Translate the Bible and Why It Matters

by a guy named John Barton. He also wrote a book

called The History of the Bible, which I would

recommend is another resource in the same category.

Essentially, what this book does is it looks

at the entire process of how the original manuscripts

were copied and saved, how they were passed down

and preserved over time, how current Bible experts

will take those manuscripts and use certain computer

techniques on them to figure out which is most

likely, how to deal with disagreements, things

like spelling mistakes, and then how to piece

together the most accurate copies of manuscripts.

And then finally, how people who translate those

manuscripts get them to us. And what's really

cool is we find out that using computer modeling

and other advanced techniques, we have the best

and most accurate copy of the Bible that has

ever existed in history. And the people who translate

the Bible do so with the utmost care. Now, this

is such a huge field that we could spend hours,

if not days, covering every single part of it.

We don't have time to do that, unfortunately,

as much fun as it would be. So we're going to

zoom way in on one tiny little piece, which is

just the New Testament manuscript evidence. Now,

it used to be that people thought that the New

Testament was written long after Jesus died.

Some people used to throw around numbers like

two or three hundred years after Jesus' life.

We know that's not true. Our evidence shows us

that the New Testament was written within 20

to 30 years of Jesus' life. We do this with historical

references in the books, references to government

officials, or certain conditions in the area.

The great part about this is that means that

the people who are mentioned in those books were

still alive. Not all of them, but a lot of them.

And so if the authors were making things up,

there were hundreds of people who people could

go to and say, hey, the book says you saw this.

Is this true? Now, we also have a ton of manuscripts

left over. We have 5 ,600 in Greek alone, 26

,000 pieces in total. We have within 50 years

of Jesus's death. fragments of manuscripts within

150 years of Jesus' death, pieces that fit together

to make the entire New Testament. Now, we are

pretty sure, well, we're almost 100 % sure that

we don't have any of the original pieces. But

that's okay, because we're pretty sure, like

99 % sure, that we have the second copies. And

that's pretty good. That's better than any other

ancient book. And what's really cool is a lot

of critics will point to the number of variations

and will say that there are 500 ,000 variations.

How could you possibly trust what's on these

manuscripts? But 99 .9 % of these are spelling,

punctuation, and copying errors. Little things

like they spell John instead of J -O -H -N, J

-H -O -N, or whatever that would be in Greek.

You know, the 1 % or the less than 1 % are meaningful.

They're changed names or words, but we have multiple

sources to find the most accurate. And this isn't

just people sliding pieces of paper around like

they're putting a puzzle together. They're using

advanced computer modeling and AI to compare

26 ,000 pieces all at once and get the most accurate

ones. Now, we are 100 % certain about almost

every word in the New Testament and 99 % certain

on the ones we learn. But none of the uncertain

words have any impact on Christian doctrine.

Put simply, the New Testament is the most well

-preserved and accurate book before the digital

age, and we can trust that we have what was originally

written. And that brings us to objection four,

which is that the information in the Bible isn't

trustworthy. People will say, all right, well,

you've got manuscripts that... have been preserved

over the past 2 ,000 years, but what if what

was originally written down was just made up?

Or what if the people were lying? How could we

possibly trust something that happened 2 ,000

years ago? Well, it turns out that we have a

lot of good reasons to trust what's in the Bible.

The resource for this objection is called The

Fate of the Apostles by Sean McDowell. This is

the most up -to -date modern look at what happened

to the apostles, and that's one of the pieces

we're going to use. to prove that what's written

in the Bible is true. You see, it's tradition

in the church that Jesus' disciples, except for

John, all died horrible deaths in maintaining

the truth of the gospel. Basically, they were

all threatened. They were told to stop preaching

about Jesus. They declined. They were threatened

with death. They kept on preaching and they got

killed, some of them in really bad ways. So what

Sean McDowell did is he went through all the

best historical records and he looks at the probability

that each of the apostles was martyred. And he

finds that six of the 12 were definitely martyred

and the others, except for John, may have been

martyred. There's historical evidence in either

way. But what we don't have and what he makes

a big point out of is that there are no records

of them recanting. And that would have been something

that was a huge deal to the Roman and Jewish

authorities. If any of them had recanted, that

would have been a big deal and it would have

gotten written down and spread out. everywhere.

So one of the reasons that we can trust the information

in the Bible is that it's backed up by the deaths

of people who maintain the truth of that information,

and they are the exact ones who would know whether

it was true or false. And nobody dies for something

that they know to be false. Another reason we

can trust what's written in the Bible are the

embarrassing stories. Think about it. If Jesus'

disciples had made up all of that stuff, they

probably wouldn't have included so many embarrassing

stories about themselves. I'm thinking of James

and John basically throwing a tantrum and talking

about calling down thunder from heaven to fry

people, and Jesus gives them the embarrassing

nickname, the sons of thunder. Think about Peter

walking out on the water, and then he gets distracted,

and he falls into the water. Think about Peter

denying Jesus three times. If these guys were

making up these stories, they probably wouldn't

have put that information in there because it's

really, really embarrassing, even 2 ,000 years

later. And speaking of embarrassing stuff, it's

not a big deal to us now, but the fact that there

are so many women in key roles in the Bible would

have been a huge deal back then. Women were not

treated well back in ancient Jewish society.

They were basically treated like property. It

took multiple women to testify against a man,

you know, and a woman basically had no rights

in that society. And so the fact that Jesus had

female disciples and, you know, following him

around was a big deal. And then the fact that

women were the first ones to find the empty tomb,

if these guys were making it up, having women

discover the empty tomb actually worked against

them and people believing it. they would have

written down that men discovered an empty tomb

because a man's word was trusted. There's also

some recent work on an idea called a disambiguator

that absolutely blows my mind. Basically, they

didn't have last names back then, and so authors

had to use disambiguators to distinguish people.

We have Mary, the mother of Jesus. We have Mary

Magdalene. Those things, mother of Jesus and

Magdalene, are disambiguated. Scientists and

statisticians can feed all sorts of ancient literature,

government records, censuses, things like that,

into computer models. And the models can calculate

what names are most popular in certain regions

in certain years. And what is amazing is that

it turns out that the biblical authors used disambiguators

at the same frequency as names were popular in

those areas. This would be impossible for us

to do without these computer models, let alone

somebody trying to do this thousands or hundreds

of years ago. It is simply impossible that the

authors got this that right. We now come to two

objections where critics of Christianity can

even admit that what we have is what was originally

written down and that the information recorded

in the Bible is true, but they still won't be

Christian because they object to God in a moral

sense. The first of these objections is considered

the number one toughest argument against Christianity,

and it's called the problem of evil. Put simply,

it says that if there is a God who is omnipresent,

which means he's everywhere, omniscient, which

means he knows everything, Omnipotent, which

means he is all -powerful, and omnibenevolent,

which means all -good, it shouldn't be possible

for evil to exist. But evil does exist, so either

God doesn't exist or God doesn't have one of

those four properties. The resource we're going

to use for this objection is called Rational

Faith, A Philosopher's Defense of Christianity

by Stephen T. Davis. And the defense against

the problem of evil is called a theodicy. This

is an explanation that tries to get inside God's

mind. We're not coming up with excuses for God's

decisions. We're actually trying to provide positive

reasons why God may have made things the way

that he did. Now, theodicies come in all different

kinds of forms. They also address different types

of evil. For instance, moral evil is evil that

comes from human decisions. If I pick up a gun

and shoot somebody, that is moral evil. And the

defense against moral evil is called the free

will defense. The idea is that it is so important

to God that we freely choose to follow him that

he has given us the free will to say yes or say

no. But this free will is not limited to just

our option to follow God or not follow God. It

applies to all the choices we make in life. We

can choose what is moral or we can choose what

is evil. And so moral evil exists as a consequence

of us having free will. On the other hand, natural

evil is any kind of evil that doesn't come from

human and free will. For instance, natural disasters

like hurricanes and earthquakes, or even things

like injury and disease. There are many different

answers to natural evil, but the one that I really

like is called accountability. Essentially, God

has made a predictable universe to give us moral

accountability. Consider gravity. If I walk over

to Bob and I drop a book on Bob's head, I know

because of gravity that that book is always going

to fall and it's always going to hit Bob on the

head. So if I walk over to Bob and I drop a book

on Bob, I'm accountable for that action. However,

what if it wasn't predictable? For instance,

what if gravity 50 % of the time caused a book

to fall straight down, but 50 % of the time caused

it to go straight up? So if I walk over to Bob

and I drop the book on his head, there's a 50

% chance it'll go up, 50 % chance it'll go down.

And so if the book does fall and hit Bob, I can

say, well, that wasn't my intention. I thought

it was going to go up. Now, the side effect of

this is that because we have predictable moral

laws, there are all different kinds of bad things

that can happen from it. For instance, earthquakes

are caused by plate tectonics, and gravity plays

a big role in the plates moving over each other

or going under each other. And so because God

has given us this world where we can be accountable

for our choices by having predictable natural

forces, things like earthquakes are going to

happen as a side effect of that. There are also

theodicies that look at evil in a general sense.

For instance, there's the greater good argument

that God has to allow a certain amount of evil

in the world or he chooses to allow a certain

amount of evil in the world because it leads

to greater good. We could look at hypotheticals

like, let's say a person has a child and that

child gets sick and dies. And the person's reaction

to that is to become a great Christian evangelist.

And they go on to lead hundreds of millions of

people to Jesus. Now we know that that child

goes straight to heaven to be with God. The person

is certainly going to be sad, they're going to

miss their child, but they will get to see that

child again someday. And God allowing that small

amount of evil brings hundreds of millions of

people to Jesus. There's also the philosophical

school of Molinism, which holds that God doesn't

just know everything, he also has the power of

perfect prediction. This is based on a number

of scripture verses where God says, if X had

happened, Y would have happened. And so they

expand this to look at the entire existence of

the universe. And what they suggest is that when

God decided to create the universe, he had an

infinite number of possible universes he could

have created. And he chose the universe with

the best possible outcome for free will creatures.

So there is always going to be some evil with

free will creatures, but God picked the absolute

best case universe. Some critics take the problem

of evil even farther. That gives us objection

six. God does bad things. They say that God doesn't

just allow evil, God does evil, or God is evil.

So they may admit that God exists, they may say

that Christianity is true, but they say, I'm

not going to follow an evil God. Well, we have

a great answer to that in the book, Is God a

Moral Monster? by Paul Copan. This book is incredible,

and it examines a lot of the toughest cases in

the Bible that really cause people to question

God's goodness. One of these is the Israelite

invasion of Canaan. To give you a little bit

of context in this, basically, as God got ready

to send the people into the Promised Land, it

was already occupied by the Canaanites. And so

God ordered the Israelites to wipe them out.

This is a real sticking point for a lot of people

who would say, how could a good God order genocide?

Paul Copan investigates this situation and provides

three really good explanations that change our

interpretation of the story significantly. The

first is this. The Canaanites were doing some

horrible things. One of these is their propensity

for child sacrifice. As archaeologists dig up

Canaanite structures, they find that live children

were buried in the cornerstones of buildings,

and sometimes, for really important buildings,

multiple live children. They believed that their

bloodthirsty gods loved that sacrifice so much

that if there were live children buried in the

foundation of the building and they died inside

of it, that their god would bless that building.

Now, it gets even worse what they did with sacrifices

for crops. They believed their god Baal would

bless their crops if there is a painful child

sacrifice involved. So they would build these

statues made out of bronze. The stomach of it

was an oven, and the arms were outstretched,

and they were set up so that they could hold

a baby. And so one quote -unquote lucky couple

would have their baby chosen and placed on his

outstretched hands. Then the priest's bill would

light a fire inside the belly of the statue.

As the statue would heat up slowly, the baby

would be cooked alive, and there were drummers

surrounding the statue beating on the drums louder

and louder to drown out the child's screams.

That is absolutely horrendous. Now, the second

thing that Paul Copan points out was that God

gave them hundreds of years of warnings to knock

it off. They had at least 400 years of warnings

to stop sacrificing their children. Not only

did they not stop, their practices kept getting

more and more barbaric. Now, even if you say

that that doesn't excuse God's command to wipe

them out, there's a third thing to consider.

It's called ancient Near East hyperbole rhetoric.

Basically, back then, it was accepted that people

would exaggerate in their speech. We do this

now with our football teams. We might say that

the Steelers dominated the Ravens, or the Ravens

destroyed the Steelers. We don't mean that the

Ravens or the Steelers... actually killed anybody

or destroyed anything. It's just hyperbole to

express how the teams played. Well, they did

that back then too. And God knows this. So when

God is communicating with his people and he tells

Joshua, hey, you're going to go in and you're

going to decimate, you're going to eradicate,

you're going to wipe out the Canaanites, you're

going to kill every man, woman, child, even the

sheep. He understood that Joshua knew what he

really meant, which was to kill the military

age males and to keep the women and the children

alive. And that is exactly what Joshua did because

we read just a couple of verses later after God

gives that command. And then after Joshua says,

yes, I wiped out the Canaanites, there's still

Canaanites around. So we know that Joshua understood

exactly what God meant. And God communicated

in the language that Joshua would understand.

And we could acknowledge that although God's

actions may have been harsh, he was dealing with

a very harsh situation. Now, that may wrap up

the last objection, but we're not done because

there's one more thing to talk about. And that's

the fact that in apologetics, your attitude and

tactics are just as important as the facts. You

can have an answer to every single question somebody

asks. You can have all the information in the

world. You can have the entire Bible and a thousand

different books memorized. But if you're a jerk,

they're not going to listen to you. And so a

great resource on how to be the best apologist

possible is the book Tactics by Greg Kogel. He

tells you how to talk, what questions to ask,

gives you advice on dealing with all sorts of

tricky situations. If you only buy one book from

all the resources tonight, make it this one.

You can learn everything else later, but you've

got to learn how to talk to people first. Let

me summarize four points from his book. The first

is this. Ask a lot of questions. You should be

asking way more questions than you're answering,

including Greg Kokel's big three questions. And

they are, what do you mean by that? How did you

come to that conclusion? And have you considered?

For instance, if somebody tells you that Christianity

is just a prank by alien teenagers who came here

and planted all sorts of evidence, and they're

all up in space laughing at us, well, first you've

got to ask the question, what do you mean by

that? ask the person to explain their entire

worldview, and then you ask, how did you come

to that conclusion? What evidence do you have

that any of that is true over the more common

sense answer that it actually happened? And then

finally, you would say to them, have you considered,

and then you might present some of the evidence

that we've talked about tonight. Now, we're not

just asking a lot of questions. We want to, in

general, be listening more than we're speaking.

If you had an hour to share the gospel with somebody,

a famous Christian pastor once said, you should

spend 55 of those minutes asking them questions

and listening to their life story, and then spend

the last five minutes explaining how the gospel

applies to them. Third, you've got to show compassion

while being committed to the truth. You know,

some people love arguing, they love debating,

but 99 % of people don't. People are going to

come to you with legitimate questions and concerns.

They may be talking to you about deeply held

beliefs that they have had for decades. They

might get angry. They might get confused. They

might yell. They might cuss at you. They may

call you bad names. You don't have to lie. You

don't have to soften the truth. But use tact.

Use compassion. Be gentle in your words, just

like Jesus was. And finally, just like Jesus

did, know when it's time to end the conversation.

Jesus told the disciples when he sent them out,

if a town doesn't welcome you, knock the dust

off your sandals and move on to the next town.

If someone gets angry about a certain fact and

then you can talk to them and the conversation

continues, that's one thing. But if somebody

is yelling at you and screaming at you and cussing

at you, and no matter what you say or do, it

just keeps on going. Or if you can tell that

somebody is not in the conversation in good faith,

if they're just trolling you or trying to make

you upset and they have no intention to actually

learn about Christianity. Maybe it's time to

leave. Frank Turek has a great question. When

he thinks that somebody isn't being sincere,

he stops the conversation and he says, let me

ask you one question. If Christianity was true,

would you be a Christian? If the person says

yes, he continues with them, no matter how difficult

they are. But if the person says no, he ends

the conversation. Because the person is not ready

to change their mind, there's no point beating

your head against a wall. And finally, speaking

to Frank Turk, I want to give you one final resource

recommendation, but this one is free. It's the

Cross -Examined app. Frank runs an organization

called Cross -Examined, which trains apologists.

The Cross -Examined app has all of the questions

and answers that he commonly answers. It has

training videos. It has all sorts of different

resources. It has conversation starters. It's

one of the most... Amazing resources you can

keep on your phone or your tablet anytime you're

engaging with other people. And it's great. If

you're in a conversation with somebody and they

ask you a really tough question, you can ask

them to hold on just a second. Like, hey, my

cat is texting me because I'm late giving him

dinner. Give me just a second to text him back.

And then you can pop up the Cross -Examine app,

look up the answer, and then be like, all right,

the cat's happy. Hey, do you know about the fine

-tuning of the universe? You could probably be

a little smoother than I was there, but you get

the point. Anyway. Thank you guys for coming

out tonight. I hope you enjoyed learning about

apologetics. We're going to dig more into a lot

of the different areas in the future. But for

tonight, have a great night.