Every Believer Confident

So you have begun to make efforts to talk with your unsaved neighbors, friends, coworkers, family, and classmates about spiritual matters. You've asked some strategic questions and conversations are going further than they ever have before. What next? This episode moves beyond questions to understanding as fully as possible what the other person believes, and in the process, continues the conversation on toward the gospel.

Does asking strategic questions really work when engaging unbelievers in conversation about spiritual matters? Yes! In this episode we explore three powerful effects well-asked strategic questions can have in a conversation about the gospel.

What do you do if you don't know how to answer an objection to the Christian faith? Many people freeze and walk away or alternately abandon reason and claim to simply believe "by faith," by which they mean apart from reason. What they don't often consider is a question to challenge the objection. Since most objections to the Christian faith are based on false or unproven assumptions, a good question can reveal the weakness of the objection. This episode explores the way Christians can use strategic questions to undermine attacks on the Christian faith.

Have you ever been talking with an unbeliever, and you find yourself trying to figure out how to steer the conversation toward spiritual matters so you can share the gospel with her? Sometimes that transition is the hardest part about sharing the good news. In this episode we explore ways to turn the conversation toward spiritual matters naturally and effectively.

Does engaging unbelievers with the gospel bring you overwhelming fear? A major cause for fear is the feeling that we don't know what to say once the conversation turns to spiritual matters. In this episode we begin to learn how to ask strategic questions that challenge the unbeliever's worldview.

Now that we have learned the basics of apologetics and have understood what is going on in the heart of unbelievers, how do we effectively engage them with the gospel? How do we practically challenge unbelief and defend the faith while sharing it in a winsome and persuasive fashion? This episode shares the story of my first attempt to utilize apologetics and how powerful it proved to be.

When unbelievers suppress the truth long enough and with great enough insistence, God hands them over to be enslaved to their desires. The freedom from God they demanded becomes slavery to sin. This episode explores how people who suppress the truth of God become slaves to their desires.

Suppressing the truth of God causes unbelievers to exchange the glory of God for an image, the truth of God for a lie, and the natural design of the sexes for homosexuality. Paul's point in Romans 1 is that the most obvious example of people trying to deny the truth is when they practice sexual immorality in a way that clearly denies the physiology of the human body as male and female. In this episode we look at the ultimate exchange of God's natural design for that which violates nature.

If every person knows God and truth about him, as Romans 1 says, why do so many either deny the existence of God or believe things about God that are not true? The answer is found in the human ability to make a mental and spiritual exchange of the truth for a lie. In this episode we look at the common tendency of people who know the truth of God to reject it in favor of falsehood.

When a person rejects God to worship something else, that thing will be at best a dull reflection of the full glory of God for which we were made, and at best, a twisted and distorted substitute. God wants us to worship him in truth, but if we will not, then a created thing, like us, will be our master. This episode explores the way unbelievers would rather have something that is merely created than having the Creator himself.

The atheist writer, David Foster Wallace said, "There is no such thing as atheism because everybody worships something. You can't not worship." When a person. suppresses the truth of God, he doesn't worship nothing, he just worships something else. In this episode we explore the way suppressing the truth of God leads inevitably to idolatry.

Why do those who suppress the truth of God think that they are rational and that those who believe in God through Christ are irrational? The fundamental problem is that the unbeliever makes reason his god and source of authority, when reason was never meant to be such. Rather, reason is a tool given by God to rightly know what he has revealed. In this episode, we explore the ways that unbelievers become irrational when they reject the truth of God.

Every unbeliever suppresses the knowledge of God in one way or another to one degree or another. Suppression has devastating consequences to the heart and mind. By denying the truth they know, unbelievers seriously injure their ability to see the truth clearly. In this episode we explore the first consequence of suppressing the knowledge of God: self-deception.

Have someone ever asked you to prove God's existence? Or maybe they have issued a challenge: prove God exists and I will believe in him! What do you say? What can you say? In this episode we examine the challenge of proving God's existence and how best to answer it.

Why don't many people give themselves any time to face the pain of life or the guilt in their hearts? It is simply too painful. As a result, many fill their lives with distractions or dull the pain in their hearts with addictive substances. Others simply deny that there is any evidence for God. This episode explores three ways people suppress the truth of their guilt before a holy God.

One of the most common objections raised against the Christian faith is the existence of so many religions in the world. How can Jesus be the only way when there are so many other religions that people sincerely follow? Where did all these religions come from anyway? This episode shows that one of the ways unbelievers suppress the truth of God they know is to create or turn to other religions.

The thought of having to prove God exists keeps many people from engaging in evangelism, as this objection is a favorite tactic of skeptics. But it doesn't need to be. In Romans 1:18-32 God shows us what is happening in the heart and mind of every unbeliever. When we come to see that the unbeliever already knows God and some things about him, it will relieve our stress about engaging him with the gospel. This episode begins to unpack the truth of Romans 1 that every unbeliever already knows God.

Some people are turned off to apologetics because they don't like to argue with others. They imagine that if we engage people with the gospel, we will necessarily have to be antagonistic and contentious. In reality, apologetics presents arguments for the truth without becoming argumentative. In this episode we look at the difference between arguing for the truth and being argumentative.

It would be easy to gain so much confidence in our ability to defend and share the faith that we forget that the Holy Spirit is the only one who can regenerate a lost soul. So what part does the Holy Spirit play in apologetics and evangelism? And how does prayer fit into that equation? Good questions! In this episode we explore the roles of the Holy Spirit and prayer in the task of apologetics.

Some people resist the idea of apologetics because they do not believe it appears in the Bible. Since the fall of man into sin, however, God has been defending his glory and he calls his followers to defend it also. In this episode we explore the biblical warrant for doing apologetics to expose unbelief and answer objections.

Many people are intimidated by apologetics because what they have heard of it requires learning massive amounts of very intellectual arguments that include philosophy and scientific design. While academic apologetics has its place, the average Christian will not be able to fulfill the command to always be ready to give an answer (1 Peter 3:15) this way. This episode explores the idea of a more practical way to do apologetics--the presuppositional way.

The number of Christians that know what the word apologetics means is growing, thanks primarily to technology. But many don't understand that there are different approaches to defending your faith. While some of these approaches overlap, some have important distinctions that affect the way we should defend and commend the faith. This episode explores the differences between various approaches to apologetics.

Some people reject apologetics and think it is unnecessary to reaching unbelievers with the good news of the gospel. They argue that we should just proclaim the truth and leave it at that. However, if you cannot answer objections and provide an answer, as 1 Peter 3:15-16 commands, we weaken the message, as God has provided us many resources to defend the faith. In this episode we show the relationship between the two.

Apologetics is about more than defending the Christian faith against objections raised against it. It is also concerned with the positive presentation of the gospel in words that are compelling and attractive. In this episode we learn how to positively portray the gospel in all its glory.

Most Christians feel completely inadequate to defend their faith and share Christ effectively. Yet, 1 Peter 3:15-16 commands every Christian to be prepared to give an answer when challenged about their belief in Christ. If God commands us, he will also equip us. In this episode we discover more about our responsibility and the power and plan of God to carry it out.

Many Christians think that apologetics is the domain of professors and scholars, but 1 Peter 3:15 calls every Christian to know how to give an answer when the faith is challenged.