#224 How to Answer Any Objection to Christianity (Apologetics Explained)

Summary

Worldview Legacy | The Think Institute
Episode #224: How to Answer Any Objection to Christianity (Apologetics Explained)
Host: Joel Settecase, with guests from Hope Reformed Baptist Church
Date: August 6, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this live-recorded episode, apologetics teacher and podcaster Joel Settecase hosts a practical seminar on Christian apologetics for a church audience in Long Island. The core mission is to empower Christian men—fathers, husbands, and leaders—to confidently answer objections to the Christian faith and become "bridge builders" for the gospel. The conversation blends theology, scripture, anecdotes, and Q&A to direct listeners toward a clear, compassionate, and biblically faithful defense of Christianity.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Call to Apologetics for All Christians ([03:20])

• Joel introduces 1 Peter 3:15-16 as the foundational text:
  "Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect..."
• Apologetics (from the Greek 'apologia') is not a church office, but a call to every believer: "There’s no office of apologist... all of us are the apologists." (06:57)

2. Understanding Objections to Christianity ([14:54], [22:47])

Joel categorizes all objections into three main types—"the three S’s":

• Scriptural Objections: Doubts about the Bible’s teachings or reliability (e.g., contradictions, moral objections).
• Situational Objections: Doubts arising from life circumstances or perceived conflict with science and suffering.
• Soul Objections: Deeply personal, existential, or emotional barriers (e.g., pain from church experience, unwillingness to submit to God).

"Hundreds of conversations with non-believers, and they all fall into one of those three buckets." (22:47)

3. Sources of Objections: The Spiritual Landscape ([28:25])

• Satan’s Influence: Quoting 2 Corinthians 4:4 and 2 Timothy 2:26, Joel explains how Satan blinds and binds unbelievers.
• Sin and Suppression: Sinful passions and willful denial of God (Romans 1:18, Psalm 14:1).
• False Beliefs: Rooted in envy, pride, or rebellion (1 Timothy 6:3-5).

"Satan wants to bind and blind unbelievers ... There are spiritual realities that are going on all around us." (29:35)

4. Becoming a Bridge Builder ([36:20])

Joel’s big idea: “God wants you to become a bridge builder.”

• Rather than being argumentative, Christians should "identify obstacles in someone’s spiritual journey" and gently "build bridges over them" to point to Christ.
• The attitude needed is one of compassion and humility, remembering our own redemption (“…such were some of you.” 1 Corinthians 6:11).

5. The Bridge-Building Toolbox

A. Prayer ([43:55])

• "Prayer applies God’s power to the root of the issue." The Christian must pray for wisdom, for the right words, and for the salvation of others.
• Pray both before and during evangelistic conversations—“Lord, give me wisdom.” (50:42)
• Example: Nehemiah’s quick prayer before responding to the king (Nehemiah 2:4).

B. Persuasion ([55:30])

• Joel emphasizes the use of arguments: “We demolish arguments and every proud thing raised up against the knowledge of God…” (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
• Share testimony, but also use reason and scripture to address specific objections.
• Take every thought "captive to obey Christ."

C. Asking Questions ([84:28])

• Jesus asked over 300 questions in the Gospels and gave direct answers only three times.
• Use questions to clarify objections and probe deeper:
  • “What do you mean by that?”
  • “How did you come to believe that?”
  • “If that weren’t true, would you be willing to trust Christ?”

6. Principles of Effective Apologetics

• No one is neutral. You’re either with Christ or against Him. (Matthew 12:30) ([61:54])
• The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Don't rely solely on clever arguments—bring every conversation to the gospel (1 Cor 15:1-4, Romans 1:16).

7. Biblical Examples: Paul in Athens (Acts 17) ([58:20])

• Paul builds a "bridge" from the Athenians' altar to the unknown god to proclaim the true God and the resurrection of Jesus. He starts from their context, quotes their poets, and leads to the gospel.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On our attitude in apologetics:

  “We use arguments without becoming argumentative.” (41:48)

• On the real challenge:

  “How in the world are you and I going to become masters of all the world’s religions? ... if I could, I can remember three [categories]. Three is a lot easier.” (16:50)

• On prayer as spiritual warfare:

  “The non-Christian has nothing like the Holy Spirit. He has sin, okay, but you have God. No one and nothing can beat God. Do you see how it's really not a fair fight?” (47:31)

• On bridge building:

  "Your starting point is your friend’s current position... and you want them to come to Christ. There’s going to be obstacles... you’ve got to build a connection between the starting point and bringing them to Christ." (59:04)

• On denominational differences:

  "The presence of counterfeits doesn't mean that there's not the real thing. As a matter of fact, that's strong evidence there is a real thing. Nobody wants to counterfeit something that doesn't even exist." (67:28)

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [02:03] – Introduction & context for 1 Peter 3:15-16
• [14:54] – Three types of objections: Scriptural, Situational, Soul
• [28:25] – The spiritual dynamic: Satan, sin, suppression
• [36:20] – Becoming a bridge builder: Role, attitude, and compassion
• [43:55] – Tool #1: Prayer in apologetics
• [55:30] – Tool #2: Persuasion and using arguments
• [58:20] – Paul’s apologetic model in Athens (Acts 17)
• [61:54] – Principles: No neutrality, power of the gospel
• [67:28] – Addressing denominational differences
• [84:28] – Asking questions: The “Jesus Model”
• [90:08+] – Practical Q&A with audience (Catholicism, denominations, suffering, how to talk to hurting parents)

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Q&A Highlights

"What do you do when a family member says faith is just personal?"

• Ask for permission to share your story: "You know, it's deeply personal for me, too. May I tell you what I believe?" ([62:33])

"What about so many denominations—isn’t that proof Christianity isn’t clear?"

• Presence of disagreement isn’t proof against the truth; focus on shared essentials of faith.
• Use "theological triage" (primary vs. secondary doctrines). ([69:15])

"How do you approach Roman Catholics who may not believe official teachings?"

• Ask what they believe personally, not just what their church teaches.
• Always bring back to the gospel of grace. ([76:27])

"How do you answer 'the Bible was written by men, so it can't be trusted'?"

• Counter gently: "You're a human being; do you always lie? Just because it’s written by men doesn’t make it false."
• Probe for real objections: "What are the real passages you struggle with?" ([80:32])

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Action Steps & Resources

• Download free apologetics resources at the Think Institute’s website.
• Practice: Pray regularly for opportunities, memorize the gospel, and get used to asking clarifying questions in conversations.
• Use OpenBible.info/topics to research verses on any subject.

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Closing Thoughts

• Apologetics is not about "winning arguments," but about lovingly removing obstacles so others can see Christ clearly.
• The outcome isn’t in our hands—faith comes by hearing, and by the work of the Holy Spirit.
• Christians are called to compassion and clarity as they give reasons for the hope within them.

"We all need to have a reason for the hope that we have and to share that with people... Nobody that I know will be there wondering for the rest of eternity—why didn't you share with me?" – (Host, [94:03])

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Transcript

[A]

And one of the first things out of his mouth, I'd been following him for a while. I liked his stuff. I liked it a lot. Theologically, we aligned quite a bit. One of the first questions out of his mouth is, do you know Anthony Uvino? I said, yeah, I had dinner at his house last night. So welcome, Anthony. Anthony is the founder of New York Apologetics, and he is a pastor over at Hope Reformed Baptist Church. And so one thing we have in common is we're both fans of Joel Seticase. So Joel was on the east coast and he could tell you the rest of the story. He reached out to me and says, I've got a few days. And we said, why don't you guys come and stay with us? And so now we have Joel here to speak to us. He is the founder and executive director of the Think Institute. He has several podcasts. Right. I mean, it's a couple different podcasts that you have. This ministry is dedicated to equipping Christian Christians, Christian men specifically, to stand firm in the faith, lead with conviction, and become effective worldview leaders in their homes and churches. Through initiatives such as the Hammer and Anvil Society and the Worldview Legacy podcast and live training events like this, Joel helps believers understand, articulate, and defend the truth of the Christian faith with confidence and clarity. And he has spent more than 15 years teaching, mentoring, and discipling men. You're also a. Are you a professor right now in seminary?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Congratulations. That's new. Yeah. Congratulations. Bible school. Okay. A sought after speaker for churches, conferences and camps, and we have him. So please help me to welcome Joel Cede Case.

[B]

Hello. Well, it's really my pleasure to be here, and I appreciate the incredibly warm welcome and hospitality. Never been to Long island before, and I understand we say on Long island, not in Long Island. Is that. I want to get that right. I don't want you guys kicking me out or off, I guess. It was really nice to. To see you all today. Tonight, let's please open our Bibles to First Peter, chapter three, verse 15. First Peter, chapter three, verse fifteen. Quick bit of context before we pray. And then read this passage. The Apostle Peter has been writing to a group of believers who have been misunderstood, to say the least, by the people in their lives, people who used to love them and support them. And then when they became believers, when they started following Jesus Christ, these people in their lives started turning on them, and they started calling them names and insulting them. And we don't think that there was necessarily any physical harm that started coming to the believers at this point yet. But if you know your church history, that was not too terribly far off in the future. And so the apostle is writing to these believers to give them counsel on how to respond when someone challenges their faith, when someone ridicules them, when someone calls them an idiot or a dummy or evil for their faith in Jesus Christ. So Peter is telling them what to do, and he uses a particular word that's going to be really important to us tonight. I'll tell you what that is in just a minute. But first, before we dive into God's word and before we talk about how to defend our faith in everyday life, we better ask the Lord's help. So would you please bow your heads with me and let's pray. Father God, we thank you so much for gathering us here tonight. Lord. As we just sang, you are king forever. This is your world, and we are so incredibly grateful that we get to live in it. Thank you that you woke us all up this morning. Not everybody did wake up this morning, Lord, and yet you've chosen to give us another day totally undeserved. Father, I thank you even more that while we were yet sinners and we were weak and we were rebelling against you, even though you're the king, we should be your subjects. While we were sinning against you, you sent Jesus Christ to die for us. Father, I pray tonight that if there's anyone here who does not yet know Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Lord, let today be the day of salvation. And Lord, I pray that as we talk about how to use apologetics in everyday life, as we dig into your word, we look at several passages of scripture, we look at various techniques and theory and methods. Father, I pray that you would reign over the whole thing. I pray that you would open our eyes to see wonderful things in your instruction. And may the words of my mouth and our mouths and the meditations of all of our hearts and be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our rock and our redeemer, in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Okay, just want to give you a heads up. By the time we get to the end of this tonight, we are going to have some time for a Q and A. And the questions, we're just going to take live questions. It's something that I love to do both online and in person. So if you have any questions about anything that we talk about tonight or anything that we haven't talked about that you wish we talked about or, or anything that just pops to your mind, maybe a question about the Bible or theology or how to defend your faith or answer a particular objection. I want to answer those questions if I can. And we're going to take that time at the end today and hopefully have a good. A good amount of time for a Q and A. So does that all sound good? All right, great. Okay, so first, Peter, we're going to look at chapter three, verses 15 and 16. I'm reading from the ESV, but if you have a different English version, that's fine. But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ and may be put to shame. This is the word of the Lord. In verse 15, the apostle uses the word defense. Do you see where it says defense? Okay. Or yours might say answer that word defense. In the original language, Greek. You know, the New Testament was written in Greek, and that word defense is a word. It's apologia. Apologia is where we get our word apology from. It's also where we get our word apologetics. It literally means defense. If someone in the ancient world, the ancient Greco Roman world, were to haul you into court and accuse you of a crime, the magistrate would stand you up and would say, give your apologia. That was your, not your apology, saying, I'm so sorry that I did it. But it would be your explanation of why you're not guilty, why the accusation is false. And so what the apostle is doing here is he's saying, look, there are people in your life who are calling you a bunch of names. They're calling you dumb, they're calling you evil. They say that you've lost your mind. Be ready to give your apologia to anyone who asks you for a reason, for the hope that is in you. And that is where we get our word apologetics. You can see the connection, right? Apologia, Apologia, apologetics. So that's what we're talking about tonight. We're talking about how to defend your faith, how to give your defense to the people in your life who think that you are insane. You've lost your mind because you follow a Jewish rabbi from 2,000 years ago, and they say, why don't you get your feet back on the ground, head out of the clouds and get down to the real life instead of following this guy who died 2000 years ago, you've lost your mind, you're crazy, or even worse, you're following a religion that is fill in the blank, anti, etc. And you've got to give your apologia, your apologia, your defense. That's what we're talking about today. So we're going to get very, very practical and talk about how to do this in everyday life. So first I want to talk about what are this, how do we think about apologetics? What are some of the objections that people raise? And then how should we think about giving our response in a way that we can do with anyone? Because if you notice in this passage the apostle says always be ready to give an answer to anyone. And he's talking to all of us. You know, there's no church office of apologist. There's pastor, there's elder, there's deacon, but there's no office of apologist. And that's because all of us are the apologists. So that's what we're talking about tonight. We're going to talk about how to give a response to anyone who asks us for the reason for the hope that is within us. And as the apostle says, we want to do it in a way that honors Christ, honors him as holy and is done with gentleness and respect in a way that as we're going to see, builds bridges. And that's the big idea that I believe God has for us tonight. Let's go to the next slide. God wants you to become a bridge builder. God wants you to become a bridge builder. There's a particular place where the other person is, where the non believer is and you want that person to come to Christ. But there's going to be obstacles in the way that you've got to get them over and you've got to get them to Christ. So that's what we're going to talk about tonight. So consider this challenge someone in your life. Think about the person in your life who's most likely, most likely to object to the fact that you're a believer. Now maybe everyone in your family is a Christian. Praise the Lord if that's the case. It's not the case in my extended family. But maybe everybody in your family is. But maybe there's a co worker or maybe one of your children's friend's parents, or maybe it is a family member or maybe it's someone living in your own home. But who's that person who is most likely to object to your faith? Now imagine that this person says I'm happy that your Faith works for you. However, I would need some convincing evidence and proof in order to believe. I can't just take it by faith like you think about the implications in that passage, maybe, or in that statement. Maybe you've had someone tell you something similar to this. I know I have. So just in your mind right now. You don't have to say it out loud. How would you respond? What's the next thing that comes out of your mouth when they say this? What's the next thing that you do even before you respond? Because this person, whoever he or she is, has just raised an obstacle. Now, when we share our faith, if you're talking about Jesus, even if you're saying something like, hey, you know, this past Wednesday night I went to church and, you know, it was. It was. It was cool, they're going to say, what did you do there? Well, I listened to a guy talk about the Bible and how to share my faith. Oh, really? How to share your faith? What do you. What's your faith? What do you believe? And now you're in an evangelistic conversation, meaning you are in the process of sharing the gospel, or at least getting to the gospel. You're talking about your faith in Jesus Christ and what Jesus has done for you. But when you share your faith, the other person is going to have obstacles. More often than not, the person doesn't just say, yes, yes, yes, and then accept Christ on the spot. They're going to have pushback, they're going to have obstacles. So we need to beware, because there are obstacles ahead. Now, let's talk about kinds of obstacles. In my experience, and as I've looked through Scripture and engaged in hundreds of conversations with believers and many, many non believers, I found that there are really just three different categories of objections. Now, this is really encouraging because I remember when I was just starting out in apologetics, I felt so overwhelmed. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by just how many different worldviews are out there? You know, there's over 4,000 religions in the world. 4,000 different religions. How in the world are you and I going to become masters of all the world's different religions? And then, not only that, but each person has their own questions. Later on, when we do the Q and A, we're going to see that there's. That even Christians have all kinds of different questions. But for non Christians, I mean, some of these questions that you're going to get are so off the wall, you would never see them coming. I remember when years ago, about six years ago, maybe seven years ago, our son Lucas was in the hospital. If you know a little bit about my story, our son Lucas has had quite the health record. He is a leukemia survivor, a heart transplant recipient. And in 2019, we spent most of the year with Lucas in the hospital. Alisa was there during the. During the week, and then we would switch, and I would go in for the weekends. And as difficult as that was, we saw God provide in some incredible ways and give us strength in some amazing ways. But one of the really cool and kind of unexpected things that happened while we were in the hospital was we had all these conversations with his care, his professional caregivers. So we would. We would have conversations with his nurses more often than not. Elisa would talk to the female nurses, and then I would talk to the male nurses. And I remember sitting outside Lucas's room one time, and I was talking with one of his male nurses, and he found out that I'm a Christian and that I worked in ministry. And he gets in real close and he says, you know what? This is something that I. I don't understand why Christians aren't talking more about this. I said, oh, man. Oh, boy. Okay, what is it? What's it going to be? He said, how come preachers never preach about reincarnation? My first thought was, like, I think you have the wrong religion, man. We don't do that. But he just totally shocked me. And I can guarantee you talk to non Christians long enough, they're going to throw you some off the wall questions and some very unexpected objections. And this is why it's very comforting to know that in the end, there's really just three kinds of obstacles that people have. Let me tell you about the first one. The first one we call scriptural. They all start with S, by the way. The first kind of objection is we call scriptural. These are doubts about the Bible's teachings or about the Bible itself. So somebody comes to you and they say, you know, I could never believe in the Bible. It's filled with all kinds of historical inaccuracies. It reports all these things that just didn't happen. Okay, that's the scriptural objection. Or they say the Bible is filled with contradictions. It says one thing, and then it says another. Okay, that's a scriptural objection, because that's an objection about the Bible. Or if they say, you know what? In the Bible, the God of the Bible commits all these moral atrocities, again, that's a scriptural objection, because they're objecting to the content of the Bible. Do you see what I'm talking about these are scriptural objections and that's a really common one. Pastor Jason, I'm sure you've come across some of these in your conversations. You know, people say you just can't trust the Bible. And actually, as a matter of fact, on Saturday at Hope Reformed Baptist Church, we're going to be talking about can we trust the Bible? So that's a major form of objection. Let's go to the next one, though. The next form of objection is what we call situational objections. These aren't necessarily about the Bible itself, but these are doubts that arise from observing the world. I'll give you two big ones. Some people think that Christian faith and science just don't go together. They'll say, well, you know, you may have faith, but I'm more a man of science, or I'm more a woman of science. I need scientific evidence. Have you ever heard this before? You know, Christianity is unscientific. Well, that would be a situational objection. They're not really objecting to the Bible per se. They're just saying, look, you live in faith land. I live in the real world, okay? When I look out at the real world, I look at, I look at science or I look at the way that things are and it just doesn't match up with what you claim about Christianity. So they're looking at the situation. Another big one is the problem of evil. Have you ever heard of this? The problem of evil, the problem of suffering is another way of putting that. They'll say, look, the Bible's all well and good, but a good God would never allow all this suffering in the world. I'll tell you a story about that in a few minutes. But that is a situational objection. They're looking around at the situation of the world and they're saying, the Bible, Christianity, it's just inaccurate. That's not the way the world really works, okay? And so we've got scriptural, situational, and then soul objections. That's the third kind. Soul objections are sometimes the hardest to deal with because there's no argument there. There's no proposition there. It's not A, it's not an argument. If A and B, therefore C. It's not that. It's deeply existential. This is the person who says, I could never believe in a God who would send someone to hell. Or even more personal, I, if I became a Christian, then that would mean that all my non Christian relatives are, went to hell. And I just can't accept that. So I will never Become a Christian. Do you see? Or this is someone who says, you know what? When I was growing up, my church was so legalistic, and they drove my family out of the church or they made my life miserable. I will never darken the doors of a church again. I don't care if it's true, false, indifferent. I don't care. I was hurt by the church. I'll never go back. Have you heard this? You know, people who have experienced this? These are soul objections. They're deeply rooted in personal experience, in emotion or desire. Let me talk about that just very quickly. One of the harshest, starkest realities in the Bible is that when Jesus calls you to follow him, he calls you to take up your cross. The cross is an instrument of death. That means that when we follow Jesus Christ, there are things we have to give up. Now, once you follow Jesus for long enough, you realize that those things were bad for you anyway. And so it's a. It's a blessing to give those things up. But man, before you come to Christ, the idea of giving up that pet sin, that pet habit that you have, it feels like too much. That's an existential objection. It's not an argument. It's a sole objection. So can you see we've got scriptural, situational, and. And sole objections. And let me tell you, in my experience, hundreds of conversations with non believers, they all fall into one of those three buckets, which is really great, because that's a lot easier than trying to memorize the intricacies of 4,000 different religions. You know, if I could, I can remember three. Three is a lot easier. Okay, now, where do these objections come from? Let's go to the next slide. Where do the objections come from? Well, there are multiple sources. And the. This is coming from Scripture. Now, there are multiple sources of objections. The first one, the big one, is what we pray about. Every time we pray the Lord's Prayer, we say, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Also translated as the evil one. This is the enemy of our souls, Satan. Satan wants to bind and blind unbelievers. And he is very good at it. He is very well practiced. He knows just what to do to keep non believers distracted and fearful. Anything to keep them from coming to Christ. And there's some verses up on the screen behind me. 2nd Corinthians 4, 4 talks about how the. The devil blinds unbelievers. His goal is to keep them from opening their eyes and seeing Christ. He also binds unbelievers. Second Timothy 2, 26 talks about that. And the devil is at work in non believers lives. He is, he is working, he and his minions are working to keep non Christians, non Christian. His goal is to keep people from coming to Christ. And like I said, he is very, very good at it. Remember that the next time you're having a conversation with a non believer. If it seems like you've laid out the gospel very clearly and you don't know what else you could do and they're just not getting it and you can't figure out why, remember that there is an enemy of that person's soul who wants to keep them blinded. We're going to talk about how to break through that. In just a few minutes we'll talk about what the weapons of our warfare really are. But just remember we are at war in the spiritual realm. Amen. Amen. So it's not just you and the other person. There are spiritual realities that are going on all around us. Satan blinds, he binds and he works in unbelievers lives. Let's go to the next slide. The next one is Simply sin. Proverbs 19:3 is one of my favorite verses. I've been reading the Bible a long time. I just recently discovered this verse maybe a year and a half ago. It says that when a person's ways lead him to destruction, he rages against God. I'm paraphrasing. Have we ever been there before? Our bad choices lead us to terrible outcomes and then we blame God. God, why did you give this to me? Well that can be a source of objections against God. I was dealt the wrong hand hand by God. I was given a raw deal. And maybe it's simply the result of the person's own sin. There are also false beliefs that people have. And actually first Timothy three or first Timothy, first Timothy six three five talks about how these false beliefs can be rooted in envy. So there's sin within the heart that actually manifests itself in false belief. Sin can lead to false ways of thinking. And then there are sinful passions that govern a person's heart and keep them from wanting to come to Christ. The fact is, in order to come to Christ, we have to repent. To repent is basically to say, Lord Jesus, everything that I'm holding on to, it's now all yours. I'll keep what you say I can keep and I'll give away and I'll give up and I'll stop whatever you say I need to stop. That's repentance. It's a mind change. I thought I Was Lord of my life. But now I recognize that Jesus is Lord. And if Jesus is Lord, I've got to do what he says. But until that moment, those sinful passions can really grip us. Sinful, sinful desires. Things that we love, that are sinful addictions. So Satan is a factor, Sin is a factor. And then there is suppression. Suppression is essentially. It's denying God. It's denying the obvious truth that we all know in our hearts, in our minds. Two big verses on this. Psalm 14:1. Does anyone know what Psalm 14:1 says? It's about the fool and what he says. What does the fool say? In his heart there is no God. That's right. The fool says, in his heart there is no God. And in that verse, you know, the Bible uses the word fool quite a lot, especially in proverbs. It's one of my favorite books of the Bible. That's not a statement about your intelligence. You know that when the Bible uses the word fool, it's not saying that you're a dumb. Dumb. No, you could. There are a lot of high IQ fools out there. Fool is a moral statement. It's someone who says God's not on the throne. I am. I'll follow my way, thank you very much. And this is why the fool says in his heart there is no God is because if there's a God, then he's in charge and I'm not. If there's a God, he's on the throne and I'm not. So the fool has to say, no God, no God. And people can say that in all different. There are a lot of religious fools as well. Some of us know what that's like, where we even use our religion or our religious rituals to. To keep God at arm's length. Hey, I did my part. I did my thing. I said my prayers. I did my ritual. Now God can leave me alone and maybe he won't bother me. The fool says in his heart there is no God. And then we have Romans 1:18 and 21. One of the best passages to study and read if you're going to learn about defending your faith. The long and short of it is this, is that we all know God. We all know God. And I mean we all know God. And by the way, in Romans 1:18, it does not say everyone knows that there is a God. I used to say that all the time. Yeah, everyone knows that there's a God. That's not what it says. It says that they knew God and there's only one God, my friends. So in Romans 1:18, we see that everyone knows the God who is there. And then you say, but why doesn't everyone believe? Because. Go back to Satan. Sin suppression. Although we know God, we can develop false beliefs about what we know. Do you know that? We can lie to ourselves about what is obviously true. And people will do this about their knowledge about God, and we do this about people as well. We'll say, oh, that person could never do such and such. Pick your action, your immoral action, even though we know that they're doing it. So we can know God and we can have false beliefs about the thing that we know. And that leads to moral confusion and that leads to our thoughts being darkened and our hearts being hardened. So these are all sources of objections. And when you're talking with a person and you hear them say things about the Bible or about science or, or about morality or how they could never believe in a God who would send someone to hell, understand these are all the things that are going on behind the scenes. And it's not just one, it's probably multiple. And this is the situation that you are in now as you're defending your faith, man. If we, if we had to do this on our own without any help, good luck. Right? How could we possibly get past all this? And yet, nevertheless, God wants us to be a bridge builder. He wants us to take the person to Christ. And so what we need to do is when we're in a conversation with a non Christian, with a non believer, and they've raised an objection, think about this, okay? It's time for me to take on the role of a bridge builder. And that can be maybe a little bit more palatable, a little bit more friendly seeming than okay, God wants me now to be an executioner. Sometimes I get in that mode myself. There's other roles that we sometimes get into. God wants me to be a MMA fighter right now. Maybe, maybe, maybe God wants you to take on that role. But if you look at first Peter 3, 15 and 16, we see that God wants us to defend our faith with gentleness and respect, with gentleness and reverence. So we're going to take on the role of a bridge builder and we're going to assume this role to identify obstacles in someone's spiritual journey. And then our goal is to remove those obstacles or build bridges over those obstacles so that the person has a clear line of sight to Christ. We can't make the person saved. We can't save anyone. You know that. Only the Holy Spirit can save someone, thank God. Thank God that it's up to him and not me. But nevertheless, we do have a role to play. And that role is the role of a bridge builder. So what does that mean then? This changes how we view the non Christian. It means having compassion. Do we have that up? Let me read a couple of verses for us. Second Timothy 2, 24 and 25. Again, one of my favorite passages in the New Testament. The Lord's servant must not quarrel, but must be gentle to everyone, able to teach and patient, instructing his opponents with gentleness. Perhaps God will grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth. Do you see how repentance comes first? And do you see how repentance is a gift from God? Do you see how this is all comes from God. Yes, we have a role to play. But repentance and faith, this is from God. And after there is repentance, then the repentance leads to the knowledge of the truth. You can't force feed someone knowledge when they haven't come to repentance yet. And you can't force feed someone repentance either. Only God can do that. But what's our role then? Well, we defend our faith, not in a quarrelsome way. We use arguments without becoming argumentative. And we keep in mind First Corinthians 6:11. In this passage, First Corinthians 6, the apostle Paul gives a litany of sins. And you read through the list and you start to cringe. Your skin crawls a little bit and the pride starts to well up. Oh man, I'm glad I'm not like any of those people. And then you read verse 11 and such were some of you, and you remember, and the Lord has saved me from so much. Wow, how could I possibly come at this person? Like a fighter, like a, like an executioner. When, however many years ago or months ago or days ago, I was right there too. Thank you Lord for saving me. Please use me in the process of saving this person. You see how this gives us compassion, this attitude gives us compassion. Now that we have the right attitude, let's talk about the tools that we have. What are the tools of a bridge builder? Let's pull up tool number one. The first tool of a bridge builder is this prayer. Prayer applies God's power to the root of the issue. Remember, there is a spiritual war for the soul of the person that you are talking to. There is no way that you and I can engage in a spiritual war against entities and realities we can't even see that are actively working against us. We can't see, taste, touch, smell them, hear them. We don't know what they're doing, what they're scheming, what doing. They're what they're planning. But we have a cheat code where we can access the Lord of the Spirits, the one who made those entities, the one who rules them, who, when he speaks, they have to obey. We can pray. Prayer applies God's power to the root of the issue. Oftentimes when we're in a conversation with a non Christian, I don't really know what the issue is. Maybe I'm talking with someone and he says, you know what? I could never believe the Bible because of all the contradictions. Maybe that's not really the main issue. Maybe I could spend two hours walking through contradiction after contradiction and showing how they're not really contradictions and how even the very idea of contradictions presupposes the laws of logic which presuppose God anyway. I could spend two hours going through all this. But maybe that's not even the real issue. Maybe if I pray, the Lord helps me uncover what the real issue is. Prayer applies God's power to the root of the issue. So pray for help. In Matthew 10, 18, 20, it says that the Spirit of your Father will speak through you. The Holy Spirit will give you the right words to say. When Jesus Christ sent out his apostles, his disciples to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, into the ends of the earth. In Acts chapter 1, verse 8, he said that what would give them the power would be the Holy Spirit. So the if you're a believer today, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, when you believed you received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. He is just as God as Jesus is God. In fact, he's even called the Spirit of Christ. So the Holy Spirit, who is God himself, will indwell you and will give you power. And Jesus says that the Father knows how to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. So pray. If you know you're going to have a conversation with a non believer, pray. Lord, fill me with your Holy Spirit right now. Give me words that I wouldn't have come up with. Give me supernatural wisdom to engage. Do you see how this is such a cheat code? Here's why it's so great. The non Christian that you're talking to does not have. There is no like evil Holy Spirit. I mean, there's the devil, but he's not on the same level as the Holy Spirit. He's a creature. He's limited. So the non Christian has nothing like the Holy Spirit. He has sin. Okay? Yeah, but you have God. No one and nothing can beat God. Do you see how it's really not a fair fight? So pray. Pray for the Holy Spirit's help. Pray for unbelievers. We are to pray for everyone. First. Timothy 214 says we're to pray for their salvation. And as Paul says in Colossians 4:3, we are to pray for an open door to speak the mystery of Christ. That can be a very tough prayer to pray when you are at the airport. Let me explain. Every time I go to the airport, I start to get nervous. I mean, if I'm traveling by myself, which is most of the time, because I know I'm going to sit next to a stranger, and quite frankly, I do not want to talk to that person. I don't know who they are. I just know I don't want to talk to that person. And yet I figure if the Lord has given me two hours next to a person, he probably wants me to share the gospel with that person. Why else would he have me sit next to that person? So I have to pray. Lord, please let there be an empty seat next to me. But if there's not. If there's not, give me the right words to say and give me an opportunity, an open door, to speak the mystery of Christ. Pray for turbulence. That's right. You pray for turbulence. And then you say, you know, brother, you know, sir, friend, what if this plane went? You know, where would you go, sir? Pray for unbelievers. And then ask yourself this. Think about that person in your life again. Do you want that person to be saved? Do you? And does your prayer life reflect that? Does the way that you are praying, first of all, are you praying? And then does the way that you are praying reflect your desire? We. We pray for the things that we want. Lord, help my hip to feel better. Lord, I pray that my children would. Would grow up and. And be healthy and follow you. We pray for the things that we want. Lord, I pray that you'd help me find that new job. But are we praying for the precious, eternal souls of the people in our lives who don't yet know Jesus Christ, who, if they were to die today, would spend an eternity under God's wrath? Do we pray for that? Let's stay on prayer. How do we pray? We can pray silently even while we are in conversation. Do you know this? You can pray right now. I can pray right now. Even as we're talking. Lord, give me Wisdom. Even as I'm speaking, when you are in a conversation with someone, you can be praying. How do I know? Because first Thessalonians 5:17 says, Pray without ceasing. That means pray without ceasing. It's pretty simple. And yet it's hard to remember that, isn't it? We're to pray with devotion. We're to pray at all times, staying alert. So praying without ceasing is not easy, but it can be a habit that you cultivate. Let me give you an example. In Nehemiah, chapter 2, verse 4, Nehemiah was the cupbearer of the king. And he found out that the. The city of Jerusalem, which was supposed to have been rebuilt, was not yet rebuilt. And he's hundreds and hundreds of miles away. He's the cup bearer to the king, and he's in front of the king and he's been praying for an opportunity to go back to Jerusalem. And the king sees him as. He's. As Nehemiah is bringing the cup to the king. And Nehemiah just looks sad because he's sad about his homeland, about his city. And the king asks him, nehemiah, what's wrong? This can only be sickness of the heart. What is it? What's wrong? Well, Nehemiah now realizes he has the open door to ask the king for the thing that he's been wanting to ask him. So he says, so I prayed and then I spoke. Nehemiah prayed quickly. How long could that prayer have possibly been? 5 seconds? 1 second? Lord, give me the words to say. Boom. And he's talking. It's not about the flowery language that we use in our prayers. In fact, Jesus warns us against trying to make our prayers all flowery and repetitive. We can pray at any time for any length of time, and we need to be praying even in conversation with non Christians. So that's tool number one is prayer. What's tool number two? Tool number two comes out in Second Corinthians, chapter 10. And that's this. It's another piece, Persuasion. Anthony, you were saying Baptists, we love alliteration, do we not? So we've got a lot of alliteration in this talk. We've got prayer now. We've got persuasion. Persuasion comes from 2nd Timothy or 2nd Corinthians 10, 4 and 5. It says this. Since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but are powerful through God, for the demolition of strongholds, we. We demolish arguments. And every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God and We take every thought captive to obey Christ. I love that passage. Every thought captive to obey Christ. So when you are in a conversation with someone, yes, share your testimony. Some people will tell you, just share your testimony. Just share what Jesus has done in your life and leave it at that. Let me tell you what, that's wonderful. Yes, share your testimony. But don't just share your testimony. Look for ways to use arguments. Look for ways to take what the person is saying and to take that thought captive to obey Jesus Christ. Someone tells you. Let me just give you a one example. I have people complain all the time that the God of the Bible is an immoral, evil monster. Have you ever heard that before? They'll say the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament is evil. Wait a second now, wait a minute. I happen to hate evil things, but I love God. So what's going on here? As a matter of fact, when I read the Bible, it says God hates evil. So how could God be evil if God hates evil? Something's not adding up here. How can I take this thought captive to obey Christ? Okay, let's see. Evil. Evil. What is evil? Well, evil is the absence of good or the corruption and perversion of good. Okay? So for there to be evil, there must be good. And if there's extreme forms of evil, which there are extreme forms of evil. I agree. There must be an extreme form of good. In fact, there must be an absolute standard of goodness by which we can judge all evil. Right, so wait a second. What would that absolute standard of goodness be? Well, according to the Bible, that's God. God is the absolute standard of goodness who never does evil. Even when I read in my Bible and I don't understand something that God has done, there's one thing I know for sure. God is never evil. God is always good. So it simply will not do to say the God of the Bible is evil. But because then we have to say, by what standard? What am I doing? I'm taking this thought captive to obey Christ. Hatred of evil is a good thing, but hatred of God is not. So we've got to take that hatred of evil and we're going to make it captive to Christ. We're going to make that thought obey Christ. That's just one example. But we can use persuasion. We use prayer and we use persuasion. Okay, let's talk about the art and the science of building bridges. Let me show you a very beautiful picture. Do you see that? You know what that is? You know what city that is? It's it's not New York. I come from a different city. This is my hometown of Chicago. Isn't that beautiful? That's one of our many bascule bridges in Chicago. New York has those amazing suspension bridges, okay? In Chicago, we have bascule bridges which open up like this. They're very nice. We've got more than any other city in the world. And every bridge, whether it's a suspension bridge or a bascule bridge, a drawbridge, any kind of bridge, has a starting point, a destination, and a connection between the two. That's what makes it a bridge. And so as we're building bridges, our bridges are going to have a starting point, a destination, and a connection between the two. Our bridges are going to have the same kind of thing. Your starting point. Let's go to the next slide then. Your starting point is your friend's current position, including their obstacles. The obstacles that they can see. They're over on this side. And they say that I don't like that. I don't like Christianity. I don't want to go there. Whatever. My objection is scriptural, situational, soul objection. I don't want to go to Jesus, okay? There's too many obstacles here. You're standing over here. This is where you want them to come. You want them to come to the cross of Jesus Christ, but they've got these obstacles. And so what you're going to do is you're going to build a connection between the starting point and the final destination of bringing them to Christ. What is that connection going to be? It's going to be an answer. It's going to be an argument. It's going to be a scripture passage. It's going to be helping them to understand something that they didn't understand before. You're going to bring them from one side to the other. And here's something very important to remember. Let me give you a couple of principles to remember as we build our bridges. The first one is this. No one is neutral. Everyone has a starting point. And if you're not with Christ, guess what. Yeah, you're against him. One time I was down in New Orleans doing some street preaching with a group called Declaring Truth and Good New Covenant Theology Group. And we were down there doing some street preaching, and I was passing out tracts. You know, those little booklets that have the gospel. I was passing those out and a young man, 25 years old, came up and started talking to me. And I said, you know, what do you think about Jesus? And he said, oh, Jesus, you know, I think he was a good teacher. I don't have an opinion on him one way or the other. I'm neutral. I'm neutral towards Jesus. I said, you're neutral towards Jesus. That's interesting. Do you know that in the Bible, Matthew 12:30, Jesus says that whoever is not with me is against me. And whoever does not gather with me scatters. And I'll tell you what, the man's. The young man's face went from this to this. And he looked at me and he said, I could never follow someone who said that. Was he really neutral towards Jesus? No, he was not. He thought that he was because he was neutral towards a Jesus of his own imagination. No one is neutral. Everyone has a starting point. And if you're not with Jesus, you're against him. And then the other principle to remember is this. There is only one thing in the Bible that is called the power of God for salvation for all who believe. And that is the gospel. And if you don't know what the gospel is, let me tell you. The gospel is this. Jesus Christ died for our sins. According to the scriptures. He was buried and he was raised to life on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures. Today, Jesus Christ rules from heaven. And if you repent of your sins and turn to him, to all who receive him, who believe in his, his name, he will give eternal life and will give the right to be called children of God. Jesus died. Jesus was buried. Jesus rose again. That's the good news. And that is the power of God for salvation. So we've talked about bridges, we've talked about what they look like, what they have. Let me give you an example from Scripture of a bridge being built in real time. And Acts chapter 17, have you ever read it? Amazing passage. And in it we see Paul using apologetics, using a defense of his faith, and he is building a bridge. There's a starting point and there's a destination. If you open up your Bibles right now To Acts chapter 17, you can look at the particular verses I'm going to be referencing in Acts 17. In verses 22 and 23, we see the starting point. The people of Athens, where Paul is, they have statues galore, they have God's galore. In fact, they even have a statue, a little shrine to a God that they call the unknown God. Paul, as he's walking around the city, is vexed in his spirit. That means he is deeply troubled and even anxious and upset that there are so many false gods and nobody seems to be worshiping the one true God. So that's their starting point. They're very religious, they're very superstitious, and they have awareness of the unknown God, but they claim that he's unknown. They claim not to know anything about him. So where does Paul want to get them to? Well, in the space of about 10 verses, he wants to get them to this truth. God is going to judge the world. And he has given and he commands all people everywhere to repent. And he's given absolute certain proof of this fact by raising his man from the dead. So God's going to judge the world by the man he has appointed. And he's given certain proof of this by raising that man from the dead. That's where he wants to get them to. What are the obstacles then that the Athenians had to overcome? They believed that God was unknown also. They thought that the. The idea of Jesus and the resurrection is a. They thought that those were crazy ideas. As a matter of fact, as Paul was preaching in Athens, he was talking about two words. He was saying he was preaching about Jesus, which in Greek is iesous. And then he was preaching about the resurrection, the resurrection of Jesus. The word in in Greek is Anastasia. Have you ever heard of the name Anastasia? Same name, it means resurrection. So Jesus, Paul is preaching about Jesus and Anastasia. And the Greeks hear this and they go, oh, there's two new gods we have to learn for our pantheon. Jesus and Anastasia. Jesus and Anastasia. What is this? A God and a goddess? They're totally confused and they think that Paul is a. Is a polytheist like them, meaning he has many gods. So Paul makes a connection in verses 25, verses 27 and verse 29. What Paul does is this. He uses persuasion and he shows them that their own poets know a lot more about this unknown God than they claim to know. He says things like, in him we live and move and have our being. Now, the amazing thing about what Paul does here is this. He quotes a poem that was written to Zeus. And the poem is using amazing language about Zeus. In him we live and move and have our being. Do you want to know something? Zeus was not that kind of God. This is the crazy thing about the Athenians. They attributed all this stuff to Zeus. Oh, in him we live. Zeus was basically a big man in the sky who was really evil, that Zeus was evil. You ever read those old myths? I'll spare you the details. Zeus was evil. As a matter of fact, Jesus equates him with Satan. In the Book of Revelation, Zeus is not good. But the Greek poet said in him, we live and move and have our being. Paul basically goes to them and says, look, you know, Zeus is not even that kind of God. You don't live and move and have your being in Zeus. And then you have this unknown God over here. Hello. Connect the dots. You've got an unknown God who you know is not one of your other gods and he's transcendent and he lives in the heavens. You don't even have a temple for him because you know he doesn't dwell in a temple. And you know that in someone, you live and move and have your being. That's your unknown God. That's the true God. Paul is building a bridge between what they where they are now and where he wants them to be. And he closes by saying God is going to judge the world by the man whom he has appointed. And he has given certain proof of this by raising him from the dead. And what was the result? The result was some mocked, some believed, some wanted to hear more. You and I should expect the same. Paul was arguably one of the best, if not the best apologist of all time, other than the Lord Jesus Christ himself. And not everybody even believed when Paul evangelized because again, it's the. It's a work of the Lord. So you and I can expect similar results. So the apostle is defending his faith. He is building bridges, and he's facing these different objections. Now, what are some of the obstacles and objections that you and I might face? Face. What are some of the scriptural objections you might face? Okay, Scriptural objections have to do with the Bible. Is the Bible reliable? Does the Bible have contradictions? Situational objections would be like this. If there's one true God and one true religion, Christianity, why doesn't everyone believe in God? If there's one God, why are there all these other supposedly false Gods? Why doesn't everyone believe in the one true God? Or is Christian faith anti science? Sole objections would include the problem of evil, Christian hypocrisy and abuse, which we talked about. You're going to face these kinds of objections and you're going to face ones we haven't talked about, ones that you could have never even thought of. How do you build a bridge? How do you personally build a bridge? We. While you build a bridge, making a connection using your experience, think about this. Have you ever wrestled with the particular objection? Have you personally ever wrestled with that particular objection? I'll give you a story. Do you remember how I said that my son Lucas, our son Lucas was in the hospital in 2019 for most of the year. Well, one weekend I was in there and I went outside to go get some lunch, take a break, and I sat down at a table that was just outside of the hospital. You remember this? I sat down and it was kind of crowded. There weren't really any other open tables. But I sit down, I open up my sandwich from potbellies. You guys have pot bellies here? Oh, it's good. Come to Chicago, I'll get your pot bellies. All right. We sit down. I sit down and I'm opening up my sandwich and this woman comes over and she says, hey, all the tables are taken. You mind if I sit here? And I'm having another airport experience here, my friends. I'm going. I really. I don't want to. But yes, of course. Have a seat. Sure. All right. Lord, what do you want me to say? You know, what kind of conversation do you want me to have? We start to talk. What line of work are you in? What do you do? Oh, she works with kids in the hospital. What do you know? I've got a kid in the hospital. And we come around to spiritual matters. And I asked her, do you consider yourself a religious or spiritual person at all? And she says, no, I could never believe in a God who would give children cancer. Well, I'm thinking, lady, you sat down at the right table here because. Because as a matter of fact, my son was a 3 1/2 year leukemia survivor. In fact, he was cured from leukemia and then he relapsed three weeks later. I know the pain and the anguish of having a child go through cancer. I know what that's like. I've prostrated myself on the chapel floor in the hospital and begged God to take the cancer from my son and give it to me. I know what that's like. I've yelled to God, yelled at God. Let's not sugarcoat it. When I was driving in my van saying, God, why does it have to be my son? I've dealt with that objection. And I was able to share my experience with this woman. Did I lead her to Christ right then and there? No. But I was able to share Christ with her. And I was able to say, look, children having cancer is not a deal breaker for trusting in Jesus. As a matter of fact, it's made me trust in him all the more. It's shown me that I have nothing without Christ. So you can share your experience. You can also share a question, a question to reframe and clarify. Objection. Three amazing questions that you can Ask would be, what do you mean by that? How did you come to believe that? And one of my personal favorites, if that weren't true, would you repent of your sins right now and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ? Someone says, oh, there are contradictions in the Bible. Really? If that weren't the case, would you become a Christian? Do you know that I had someone one time, I do a lot of debating online on our YouTube channel for the Think Institute. And one day a young man came on to debate me, and he gave me, I don't know, three or four different objections all in a row. And I said, hold on a second. If I answer all of your questions, will you repent? Imagine like, like he's going to do this. I said, will you repent of your sins and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and become a Christian tonight if I answer all your questions? I never asked people that. But I asked him this. I asked him, and he's, you know what he told me? He said, yes, I will. I said, yeah, okay, right. I'm thinking, it's not even up to you, man. It's up to the Lord, right? But he said, yes, I will. So I said, fine. So he asked me one question after another, and I answered them, doing my best with the Lord's help as I'm praying to take every thought captive to obey Christ. I answered his questions and he said, thank you very much. And he exited the call. And I thought, well, that was that. Okay. Got into another debate with somebody else for an hour. Guess what? An hour later, there's a new caller on the line. He comes up and he says, hey, I'm the guy you just talked to an hour ago. I said, oh, welcome back. He says, listen, you answered all my questions and I told you I would do this. I'm ready to become a Christian right now. And he did. He put his faith in the Lord Jesus right there on the call. It still wasn't up to him, but the Lord led him to faith that night. Isn't that amazing? So a question can help clarify and reframe what's going on. Questions also help take you off the defensive a little bit. They help us just remember, like, look, I don't have to go into attack mode with this person. I can find out what's going on. I can find out where they're coming from. It's an act of love to ask a question. That's why Jesus, when Jesus was challenged, Jesus asked over 300 questions in the Gospel. He replied to questions with questions 300 times. Do you know how many he directly answered with a statement? 3. Jesus knew how to ask questions. Jesus knows how to love better than anybody. We can emulate our Lord with his help. So we can ask questions and then we can share stories. Would an illustration or a parable help communicate the answer? The Lord taught in parables all the time. The Gospels. We can also share a scripture. What biblical passages speak to this issue? And let me tell you what, let me just, I don't have it up on the screen, but let me give you a tool. Right now there's a website called Open Bible. It's openbible.info and then just to make things more complicated, it's openbible.infostopics. if you type that in, it will bring up a search engine where you can type in whatever you want. It could be the problem of evil, it could be Jehovah's Witnesses. You could type in whatever you want salvation. And it will pull up a list of verses that are relevant to that topic. Some of them are more relevant than others, but it can be really helpful for sharing a scripture with someone who has an objection. That's openbible.infox/topics. I use it in my debates every single time, all the time, constantly. So that's my talk. We're going to skip the next slide that says get some reps. We're going to skip that one. Okay, that's what I have for you tonight. There should be two QR codes behind me. Okay, great. Okay, so here are the two QR codes here. The first one is a link to the Think Institute website, specifically our store where, where we have dozens of totally free PDF downloads where you can learn how to answer particular objections. I go really in depth in some of these on how to share your faith, how to there's Bible study resources on there, things to help you lead your family. So that's a link to the Think Institute website, the store. And if you want to learn more about how to defend your faith, that's a great place to go. Also, the Think Institute is a Christian nonprofit. We're a nonprofit teaching ministry and we bring teachings like this all over the country. We go to Virginia, we've gone to New Orleans, we go to Wisconsin, all around the Chicago area. And the only way that we do that, that we are able to do that is through the generosity of our ministry partners. And so we partner with churches and individuals, like minded people who want to help support our work. And so if you would like to support and Become one of our ministry partners. We'd love to have you. We'd love to be your ministry, and we'd love to help you to allow you to partner with us in that. So that's the other QR code. All right, so that is what I have for you tonight. Tonight. How much time do we have, Pastor Jason, for Q and A right now. All right. Hope you guys brought a pillow and blanket, because we're going to move into Q and A right now. Let me just. I'm going to get a drink of water, and then we'll. We'll go to Q A. Okay. As we go through the questions, I'm going to write down your questions because these might become. I like to make YouTube videos about the questions that people ask me. So we might end up making a video about your question. So what questions do we have about the Bible, theology, apologetics, Christian worldview? Myself, personally. What would you like to ask? Yes, ma'.

[C]

Am.

[B]

Okay. Okay. So you were talking with a family member, and they said, I have my faith in here. Does that mean they didn't want to talk about it? Okay, so they have a personal faith that they don't share with others. Do you know, is this person a believer? They claim to be. Okay, well, that's where it gets tricky. So this would be. So the idea is this person has their faith internally. They don't really want to talk about it, don't really want to share about it. Sometimes what I like to do in that kind of case is I do like to ask people what they believe. If they don't want to share, sometimes you can simply say, I totally respect that. I hear that faith is a deeply personal thing. I can tell it's deeply personal for you. You know, it's actually deeply personal for me, too. May I tell you what I believe? And now you're evangelizing, and that may be the conversational lubrication that is needed to, you know, get the gears moving a little bit. Maybe you need to share first. Maybe they're not comfortable. But if you say, you know what? I'd love to tell you what I believe about Jesus. And then after you share, you could say, what do you think about that? And maybe they'll say nothing at all. You know what? Interesting. You can't crowbar somebody into sharing. You know, you can't pry it out of them necessarily, but you can ask for permission. I'm always asking for permission in my conversations. Hey, may I share with you what I believe? May I have your opinion on what you Think about that. And if they say no, okay, today's not the day, you know, maybe we wait. Oh, let me tell you another thing that I like to do. Set a sometime appointment. A sometime appointment works like this. Very non committal, very easy to set. You simply say this, hey, you know, we've talked about a lot of different stuff. Sometime I would love to share with you about my relationship with Jesus Christ. And I'd love to get your thoughts on what you believe about God as well. Sometime. Would you like to do that? Sometime? Sometime? Who's gonna say no to sometime? You know, that could be anytime. And then you have to follow up, but. And maybe they will say, no, I'm not interested. That's fine. That's where we go back to prayer and we're praying the whole time. But that's where we say, okay, Lord, it's not time yet. Please give me an opportunity, give me a chance to proclaim the excellencies of the gospel to this person. And you just pray and you, you know, keep knocking on the door. And even Jesus says in Revelation 3 that he stands at the door and knocks so we can keep knocking as well and we'll be like our Lord in that way. Does that make sense? Cool. Yes. Yeah, that's a great question. The question has to do with, look, there are so many different denominations. There's Baptist, there's non denominational, there's Presbyterians. It seems like if the Bible were clear, there wouldn't be so many denominations. Right? So the implication is the Bible must not be clear. Okay, well, one thing you could say is, hey, listen, there's so many different forms of counterfeit currency out there, you know, I mean, there's fake dollars and fake hundred dollars and I saw a million dollar bill one time. I guess there's no such thing as real American dollars, right? No, of course not. The presence of counterfeits doesn't mean that there's not the real thing. As a matter of fact, that's strong evidence that there is a real thing. Nobody wants to counterfeit something that doesn't even exist in the first place. So that's. It's not a good argument to say that because there are different versions of something, then there must not be a true one. Does that make sense? Okay, the next part is this. When you actually study the Bible, the Bible is more clear on the things that are more important. That's why if you talk to a con, let's say a Bible believing Presbyterian and a Bible believing Baptist. I'm talking about those who say, I am guided in my faith and practice by Scripture. The term that we would use for that would be either sola scriptura, meaning scripture alone is God's infallible, inerrant rule of faith and practice for God's people. Or we could say biblicist, someone who takes the Bible really, really, really seriously. Okay, if you look at a Presbyterian who believes that way and a Baptist and a non denominationalist, guess what? We're going to agree on this, on the most important things. And if we disagree, guess where we go to settle our disagreements. We go back to Scripture. So we agree on that. We agree that scripture has to be the determining factor. When you do that, what you find is that Bible believing churches believe the same gospel, they believe in the same God, the same Trinity, and they believe that we are saved by God's grace alone through faith alone. Differences over baptism, eschatology. I'm not saying they're not important. I think they're very important. I'm sure we're going to talk about more about that stuff, you know, as I'm out here. But they are secondary matters because they don't affect your eternal salvation. The matters of first importance are laid out very clearly in the Bible. And if someone says, well, I just still don't think there should be any disagreements at all, I would say, well, that sounds like a standard that you're importing. The Bible doesn't teach that. The Bible doesn't say there will never be any disagreements at all. But the Bible is very clear about what the gospel is. And then with a person like that, I would bring them back to Scripture and I would say, fine, look, Baptists and Presbyterians disagree all day long. What does the Bible actually say? Let's see if it's clear. Because we really shouldn't judge the clarity of the Bible on the people that disagree. We should really look at the Bible ourselves, shouldn't we? If that's the thing that's under dispute. So what does the Bible say about salvation? Oh well now I can go to John 3:16 and First Corinthians 15 and Romans 1:16 and 17 and Luke 24 and I. There's plenty of passages in the Bible that teach about salvation. There's also plenty of passages that teach about baptism, but let's talk about salvation first. So I would, I would always bring them back to the word. Yeah, so they say, they say, I want to go to a church. Now I'm interested. Would you go to this church? You personally? Yeah. Invite him here?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Right. Well, this is where you get to help guide and you get to be a bridge builder and you get to say, well, look, this is the church that I go to. This is the kind of church that I recommend, one that takes the Bible very seriously. This is my view of baptism. I think you ought to go to a church that has my view because I think I'm right. And, and that's good. You should think you should have biblical conviction about your theology. And then if somebody shows you in God's Word that you're wrong, you should say, wow, you're okay. I, I guess I'm wrong because that I see it in God's Word now, because this book guides my theology. This is the Bible, and this, this book guides my theology. But, yeah, invite them to your church.

[C]

Definitely occurred to me, processing this and talking it out. Okay.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So let's say a lot of people

[C]

are divided on different things, but what are they united on? Would you be united if they were all united on this one thing that you say? By grace alone, through faith alone, Christ alone? If they're all united on that, shouldn't you believe that?

[B]

That's a great point. Their point is, I can't believe because there's so much disagreement. And then you say, well, what if they were actually agreed on this important thing? Would you believe it? Because you say you can't believe because of the division. What if there was unity? Would you, Would you believe? Yeah, that's good, sir. This is a great opportunity to teach

[A]

people, teach ourselves, and then teach people about theological triage, the primary, secondary, third level issues. Yeah, but Christians who say,

[B]

Yeah, and

[C]

then there's these other things which are

[A]

actually signs that we're not in a culture.

[B]

That's a great point. Yeah, yeah. The fact that we can disagree on these secondary issues. Pastor Jason just used the term theological triage. You know, when you go to the emergency room or emergency department, the person with the bone sticking out gets to go in first. And if you've got a headache, you've got to wait. Right, That's. That's right. That's right. That's triage. So we, we have the matters of first importance, in fact, and by the way, that term even comes from the Apostle Paul. He says, I delivered unto you as of first importance that which I also received. That's First Corinthians 15. So the gospel is the matter of first importance. Eschatology. We, we're going to talk about that later on right now. Let's get you saved. That's the Triage. Yes, sir.

[C]

So while we're talking about disagreements. So I had come across somebody not too long ago who had basically said to me that he doesn't want to go into the deeper things in theology, like eschatology, the secondary church stuff, for the purpose of not wanting to sow division. How would, how would you address that?

[B]

So someone says, I don't want to go into the deeper things of theology, so I don't sow division. I would say, how dare you divide us like that? Because some people do want to go into the deeper things. I'm having a little bit of fun. But in Hebrews, it talks about moving from the, the, the simple things. The, the milk we are to crave spiritual milk. We need the gospel. We need the, the teachings about baptism and the gospel and laying on of hands, which is one of the things that are mentioned, you know, appointing elders, spiritual gifts, we need those things. But solid food, Hebrew says, is for those who have had their faculties of discernment honed through practice. So we are not supposed to stay babies. And yes, will that lead to some division? Of course. But that's. I mean, people get divided over the gospel people. You know, you get two Baptists together, you have three opinions. Like, we divide over things. And so that's okay. Division's okay. The question is, can we, can we make arguments without being argumentative? And Paul does warn about irreverent, silly myths and quarrels. And so if we get to the point where we're disagreeing about eschatology and we start quarreling, and now I'm not going over to your house for, you know, Sunday after church because I can't stand that you're a dispensationalist pre millennialist, and I'm a good, solid biblical amillennialist, you know. Oh, sorry, I got a little carried away there. Then we say, you know what? Pump the brakes on this. You're my brother in Christ. I love you. We'll talk about this another time. Let's just, you know, let's. Let's go back to the, the milk for right now and figure out where we agree and we can talk about that stuff another time. But that's more of a condition of the heart. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

What else? Okay. Okay.

[C]

Some of the harder conversations I've had, and it's like, I've done my research of what's wrong, but how do you bring it up without being like I'm bashing your religion? Because I just want you in heaven with me. You Know what I mean? And it's like. But it's also people who, who don't know what the Catholic Church teaches, but they've been part of the Catholic Church their whole life. And they were baptized as a baby, so they think they're good and they're just showing up at Easter and Christmas and they're doing their thing and they don't want to hear it.

[B]

How do you witness to Roman Catholics who don't even necessarily know what the Roman Catholic Church teaches? Well, I have a friend who I just recently spoke with. This is someone who, when I first knew him in college, he was not a believer. Born and raised Catholic. Born if you can be born Catholic. He was born. He was born Catholic and he was raised Catholic. But when I knew him in his 20s, he became a Christian, like a Bible believing, gospel believing, born again Christian. And I hadn't talked to him in a while, checked in on him recently and we talked. He's going back to the Catholic Church. Church kids are going to Catholic school. He's attending mass on Sundays. And that really. That. It breaks my heart. It really does. Let me tell you why, in case you're not aware, and that's not a slight against Roman Catholic people, many of whom are in my family, whom I love very much. But the reason why I say it breaks my heart is because the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is that we contribute to our salvation through our good works. And the Bible is just so clear that by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of ourselves. It is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one may boast. And that's a different gospel. It's a different plan of salvation. So it breaks my heart to hear someone going back to the Catholic, to the Roman Catholic faith. So I asked him, I said, my friend, here's what if. Here's what the Bible says. Here's what the Roman Catholic Church officially says says, I mean, because maybe you don't know. And he looked at me and he said, well, you know, they've moved away from a lot of those older teachings and they don't really teach that anymore. And I said, well, what about you? Which one do you believe? And he goes, well, I believe what the Bible says. I said, you believe you're saved by grace and you don't work for it. He goes, yeah, that's what I believe. I said, okay. He's just going to the church because of the tradition and the structure, and it reminds him of when he was growing up. At that point, I didn't have a lot of time to really dig in with him. At that point, I can pray for him. I know his wife is not on board with it. I can pray that he'll again, maybe check in on him again. Are you still holding strong with the gospel? You can ask questions about what they believe and always bring them back to scripture. Be like, okay, you're a Roman Catholic. Do you believe that the Bible is the word of God? Yes. You do? Okay, I do, too. Can I show you a couple verses and you tell me what you think of these? And then I'm going to Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. I'm going to Galatians 1 where it talks about another gospel. So I'm trying to bring them back to the word. One more thing on that, too. Maybe I've already kind of alluded to this, but find out what he really believes or she really believes. Because if they've been in the Roman Catholic Church for a long time, maybe it has been about the ritual and they really don't know what it teaches. And if you, if it's somebody you can get in depth with, open up the Roman Catholic Catechism or the. The Council of Trent, which officially says, if anyone says that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, he is anathema. You know what anathema means? Eternally cursed. You go to hell. Well, guess what? The Apostle Paul says exactly that in Ephesians 2, and then in Galatians, he says, if anyone else brings a different gospel, he is anathema. So who's in that? Who do I. Who's anathema? Do I trust the Popes or Paul's? I'll take Paul's all day, every day. So it depends on the relationship you have with the person. But ask questions, find out what they believe, and bring them straight back to the gospel. Yes, sir.

[A]

Atheist, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, whatever.

[C]

What do you believe?

[A]

You can't just go by the official teachings.

[B]

Always find out what the person has. An individual believes. Don't just go off the official teaching. Especially nowadays with certain cults, certain false religions, their teachings do change over time. Mormonism is a great example. Their teachings have changed over time. And the average Mormon that you meet may not have any idea what Joseph Smith said. He might not even take the teachings of Joseph Smith all that seriously. So we have to ask those questions. Yeah. Someone in front. Oh, yes. Yeah, that's a great question. What do you say when someone says that the Bible was written by men and therefore we can't trust it. I mean, you could turn that right back around and say, well, listen, you're a human being. You're a man or a woman. Can I trust you? Is everything that you say false? They're going to say, no, of course not. No. And everything I say is not false. Just because something is written by a man doesn't make it false or untrustworthy. People can tell the truth. We can say true things, certain things. So just because something's written by a man, what we're doing is we're kind of undermining the objection a little bit. Okay, it's written by man. Does that mean. Does that make it false? No, just the simple fact that it was written by men does not make it false. Okay, but then what we can do is this. We can say, okay, actually, on Saturday, we're going to be talking about, can we trust the Bible? And I'm going to try. I'll give you the Cliff Notes version of it. Okay, Come back. Come on. Come to Hope Reform Baptist Church on Saturday. Okay. See me afterwards. I'll tell you when Anthony's not listening. Okay. The long and short of it. The long and short of it is earmuffs. The long and short of it is, is that if the Bible were not true, we could not make sense of anything. The Bible presents the only worldview in which logic, science, and morality make sense. And that same Bible claims to be written from God. So you either believe what the Bible says about itself or you say, I don't believe the Bible, and now I can't make sense out of the universe or life or anything at all. Now, that's a lot to try to handle. Maybe this is a more personable way of going about it. You simply say this, well, why don't you tell me some of your problems that you have with the Bible rather than just say, hey, it's written by men. So I don't trust it. What are some problem passages that you actually have with the Bible that you don't believe? My guess is they probably don't have any. Can I tell you just a quick story? This will take five seconds. One time I was in the city of Chicago. I was in there with an older relative of mine, and we were at the Green Mill, which is a jazz club in Chicago. Really cool place. Al Capone used to go there. It's Chicago. We have gangsters. I mean, you guys have gangsters here, too, right? So I'm there in the Green Mill. I'm sitting there with my. With my relative. And we're talking about the Bible. And he says, well, you know, you can't believe the Bible. Why not? Well, the Bible has all these contradictions in it. Oh, man. I wanted to go into attack mode. No, it doesn't. I know what you're thinking. Let me tell you the passages. And here we go. Instead, though, wisdom of God. He said, the Bible has all these contradictions. So I simply said, I hit the brakes and I said, like what? He looked at me and he said, well, doesn't it. What do you think? I said, no. And he said, oh, okay. And that was it. So ask what the problem. You know, what are the actual problems you have with the Bible? Because to simply say you just can't trust it, that's what's called an arbitrary statement. It doesn't have any backing, it doesn't have any justification. It's really just a feeling of my own. It's an expression of my own feelings. I just don't trust the Bible. I don't have a reason, I don't have an argument. I don't have any justification for that claim it was written by men, but not everything written by men is false. Anyway, that's not really an argument. It's more just my feelings. So I would try to ask why. What's really going on there?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yes. With your friend who. How we are saved and didn't seem to. Was going to the Catholic Church because of this. Yeah. Okay. So for my friend who's going to the Catholic Church, says he believes in God's plan of salvation as laid out in the Bible, but likes the Catholic Church for the traditions and the structure and the history. Is a person like that saved? I want to say yes. Now, do I know that for certain? No. Only the Lord knows. But I believe that we are saved by grace alone, through faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone. It's the gospel, not our church membership, that saves us. So if someone is in the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church and they're misguided or. Or they're just simply maybe not thinking so deeply about it, well, I want to encourage them to come out of it because they do teach a false gospel and it's not spiritually healthy to be in there, but we're saved by the gospel. Now, let's say it's been six months, two years, five years, and I'm looking at this friend and I go, I'm not seeing any spiritual growth. Matter of fact, I'm seeing a lot of unrepentant sin. I'm not seeing any fruit. Yeah, I don't think this person is saved. Again, I can't prove it. Okay. And there are plenty of people who say they believe the gospel, who live like unregenerate people who don't believe the gospel. I've been, I've been that guy. And so you do have to look at fruit, but it were saved by the gospel. My advice to anyone who's in the Roman Catholic Church, Come out, Come out of the Roman Catholic Church, get to a good Bible believing, gospel preaching church. But we're not saved by church membership. Thank God. Sir. Sitting down with the coworker or the worker. Yeah. This story that I told about the woman who said I could never believe in a guy who would give a child cancer. What if it's now a parent? And now I'm speaking to a parent whose child is in the. The. Whether it's the cancer floor of the children's hospital or the cardiac floor. Yes. Well, I don't have to imagine that because Elisa and I had many, many conversations with people in that exact scenario. And I will tell you, the Lord gave us so many opportunities to share the gospel. And we, there's. There's apologetics and then there's apologetics, there's debating an atheist who got an ax to grind against God, and then there's the parent whose child is suffering. And they don't know. They don't have any hope outside of the fact that I hope the radiation works or I hope that my child's heart comes in in time, you know, but that means that another child has to die and so that my child can get a heart. I mean, it's a very sad situation. Alisa and I had many conversations like that and, and we would simply share the hope that we have in Jesus Christ. And it's really that simple. Why do bad things happen to good people? Well, we could talk about how there are no good people. Okay. We could talk about how what we all really deserve is hell. But in that moment, the people, what they really need to know is, look, can I share with you what gives me hope to hang on? And that's the Lord Jesus Christ. Without him, I would be falling apart. And I don't know how you're holding up, but can I share the hope I have with Jesus Christ? Do you know that the Bible says that the Lord is close to the brokenhearted? Do you know that Jesus Christ said that if we. That if anyone lives and believes in him, he will never die? And that if anyone believes in him, though he dies, yet will he live? I believe that my, I believe that my son, if he were to die and he's a believer in Jesus Christ, I'll see him again. He will actually live again. He will rise up from the grave and I will too. Would you like to have that hope? Can I share with you how to have it? No, no thanks. I'm not really interested in hope right now. Who's gonna say that? I mean, those are those moments when everybody needs to hear the hope of Jesus Christ. And so we would just, I mean, we would just share the gospel. Now, I will say that I did get into some apologetic style conversations. Remember I told you about the nurse, the male nurse. But I had another conversation with a father, similar age, maybe a little bit older, who was a conservative Jewish man. Remember this? And we were talking and I asked him, are you spiritual, religious? He told me he's Jewish conservative. And I, I asked him, now, this time, at this point, we're talking about theology. Now his child is there in the cardiac floor, same as mine. But I said, oh, you're Jewish? Okay, well, do you believe, do you believe that Isaiah is God's word? And he said, well, you know, the rabbis are. They're not so sure about that. They don't really know how to classify Isaiah. And I looked at him, I said, come on, man, you know, Isaiah is a prophet from God. And he goes, yeah, I do. Sure, of course I do. I said, okay, Isaiah is from God. Do you ever read it? And he goes, well, you know, not really. Like I said, Isaiah 53. And I took him to Isaiah 53, the suffering servant. And I said, look at this. Do you see G. Does this sound familiar at all? Does this, look, if you don't know Isaiah 53, is this the, the song of the suffering servant? By his stripes we are healed. He was pierced for our transgressions. It talks about how even though he dies, he will rise again. So I'm bringing him to this passage. I said, do you see how this is Jesus? And he says, well, yeah, I see how you could interpret it that way. And I said, okay, that's at least a start. But that's an example of. You don't really know what you're going to get with a parent like that. This was a guy who wasn't crying, wasn't. I mean, he was dealing with the existential dread of his child possibly dying. But we got into like this intricate prophetic discussion there in the parents lounge on the floor. So you just don't know what you're going to get. I would say pray and just be ready to share your hope. Be ready to talk about Jesus and then be ready to take. It's the same as ever. Be ready to take every thought captive. What else? Maybe one more. Pot bellies. Pot bellies, okay. Yeah, that's true. We'll do pot bellies one day. Since I mentioned it. But if you're really coming out to Chicago, I've got a few other places I can show you as well. Have you ever heard of Portillo's hot dogs? It will. There's, like, certain things that change your life. Okay. The gospel, of course. Getting married, having children, and then Portillo's hot dogs is right there. It's so good. I'll bring you there first, then I'll bring you to Potbelly's. Okay. Is that it? Is that the last question? That should be the last question. Okay, thank you, guys.

[A]

I will tell you that if I put hot dogs anywhere near getting married and having children, I would be in very big trouble. But my wife is a vegetarian, so let's. Thank you guys so much. Joel. Thank you so much. Please consider giving to Joel's ministry. It means so much that he's able to come out and do things like this and just equip Christians throughout the. Throughout the world. You know, the work that he does is so important. It's so significant that we all, you know, we don't all have to be this level of an apologist, but we all need to have a reason for the hope that we have and to share that with people. We are living and walking and working and related to people who are going to be spending eternity in hell with weeping and gnashing of their teeth. And the one thing that I am so committed to is that nobody that I know will be there wondering for the rest of eternity, why didn't you share with me? Why didn't you share with me? So thank you so much, Joel.

[C]

We really appreciate it.

[A]

Let's close out in prayer, and then we'll sing the doxology. Father God, thank you so much. I ask for blessing over Joel, Elisa, their children, their trip out here on the east coast, and that you be with him this Saturday and you allow us to have a blessed visit this week. We love you so much, God. It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen. God, from whom all blessings.