Apologetics Provides Solutions Through Informed Doctrine

Apologetics
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S P E C I A L
Proclamation for America
Father, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
Your Word declares that if we, Your people, who are called by Your
name, will humble ourselves and pray and seek Your face and turn
from our wicked ways, then will You hear from heaven and You will
forgive our sin and will heal our land.
(2 Chronicles 7:14)
We bow before Your sacred throne and humbly ask Your
forgiveness for the sin of idolatry! Your word demands; “Thou shalt
have no other gods before Me”, yet we have, under the banner of
pluralism and hedonism, embraced and worshipped the gods of
this world. Take us back to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!
(Exodus 20:3)
Through moral and spiritual compromise and complacency, we have
allowed our nation to conform to the ways of the world by turning
away from our spiritual roots found in Your Word.
(Romans 12:2)
Our silence has produced a secular nation and all nations that forget
You, shall be forsaken. We ask that You hear our cry, for we need
You, in these desperate times, to lead us out of our politically correct
fog of constant confusion and take us back to Your moral clarity.
(Psalm 9:17)
O Lord our God, King of the Universe, we confess that America
cannot survive without Your presence. Your statutes founded this
blessed land and we look to You, Father God, to preserve it, for
“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
(Psalm 33:12)
As commanded in scripture, we pray for all who are in authority
who govern our nation; may their decisions be led by the perfect
compass of your Holy Word which clearly discerns right from wrong.
(I Timothy 2:1-3)
O Lord our God, You have promised to raise up righteous leaders
into high places and to remove those who have displayed unrighteous
authority. We earnestly pray that You will once again exalt the
righteous and expose the deeds of the ungodly.
(Proverbs 14:33-35)
America must have spiritual renewal for moral survival! In this
season of prayer, we unite in humble heartfelt hope and ask that You
forgive us and deliver us from the folly of our transgressions. Guide
and sustain our nation as we turn from our sin and return to You,
the God of our fathers. (Psalm 51:1-17)
The time has come to declare our trust in You to heal our land.
(2 Samuel 22:2-4; Psalm 5:11-12;
Psalm 57:1-3)
We pledge to exercise our God given rights of “life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness” in voting for future leaders from the county
courthouse to the White House who obey and honor Your Word.
(Deuteronomy 28:1-14; Psalm 119:44-48;
Psalm5:11)
We pledge to vote the Bible in selecting those that will govern our
country. (Deuteronomy 16:18-20)
Blessed are you, O Lord our God, for You are good and Your
mercy endures forever. We petition heaven with our united prayers
as we seek Your blessing, Your peace and Your protection for
America. (I Chronicles 16:34; Numbers 6:22-26;
Romans 15:13; Psalm 5:11)
May the Lord our God, be with us, as He was with our forefathers;
may He not leave us or forsake us; so that He may incline our hearts
to Himself, to walk in all His ways... that all peoples of the earth may
know that the Lord is God and that there is no other.
(1 Kings 8:57-60) Amen
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apologetics and the Christian
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Christian Apologetics, by Doug Powell
What is Apologetics?
Supermarket or Antidote?
In the light of the command to be able to give a defense for the truth
that is within us and love God with all our minds, we must equip
ourselves with the facts, evidence, and arguments for Christianity and apologetics both.
We must equip ourselves with a manner that can administer an
antidote effectively. We are not to be clanging gongs but as the
most beutiful music--welcoming, infectious, and irresistible.
To begin this training, we will start by assuming nothing. Before we
can talk about Christianity and apologetics, we must be able to show that God exists,
period. But can we reasonably believe that God exists? And if
God exists, which religion describes Him most accurately? The
next section looks at several arguments for God's existence and
His attributes. We will then compare our discoveries with how God
is viewed by a variety of religions apologetics.
Does God Exist?: The Cosmological
Argument of apologetics
The Cosmological Argument has a long history and is employed
effectively by numerous religions. It does not seek to show all of
the attributes and characteristics of God, only that God does exist.
But while the argument does not show which of those relgions is
true, it does expose several religions and worldviews being
incompatible with the features of the universe that the cosmological apologetic
argument brings to light. These will be examined in chapter five.
Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, however, hold a view of God that is
compatible with the characteristics of our universe on which the
cosmological argument is based.
Does God Exist?: The Design Argument
The different approaches to the design argument all try to show the
same thing: that naturalism can only account for so much; at a
certain point it's explanatory power fails. But it is not this failure that
points to an intelligent designer (the so-called "God of the gaps"
theory).
In apologetics, The precision of the universe, the nature of information , and the
observation that random and undirected forces cannot account for
the complexity of living things all lead to a transcendent, personal,
intelligent designer.
Does God Exist?: The Moral Argument
In conclusion, moral relativism turns out not to be a moral system at
all but merely a set of opinions. These opinions carry no sense of
ought or authority and could change at anytime. It seems clear that
though many people give lip service to this philosophy, no one lives
it. In apologetics Paul Copan has pointed out,
RELATIVISM...isn't merely emotionally offensive. It doesn't hang
together logically. As a worldview, it cannot be sustained.
RELATIVISM...is a sunny-day morality, but as soon as a person is
wronged, they instantly believe in moral absolutes.
OBJECTIVISM...is the only coherent view of morality. Only
objectivism makes sense of our experience, of our perception of
society and laws, our intuition and guilt. It is the only view of morality
that can be lived consistently. and it points very strongly toward the
existence of a transcendent, powerful, personal God.
Which God Exists?
The way of thinking about God that best corresponds to the
characteristics we can know through reason and the observation of
the universe is monotheism. Now the question becomes, "Which
monotheistic religion is the true one, or are they all false?"
Interestingly enough, the monotheistic religions do not just have the
same basic discripition of God, they all claim to be talking about the
same God. The God who has revealed Himself in the Old
Testament is claimed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims alike. Islam,
however, claims the Old Testament has become corrupted. And
Christians believe the messianic promises in the Old Testament
were fulfilled in Jesus. Judaism denies both claims.
Also, the three monotheistic religions all make claims about who
Jesus was. To Islam He was a great prophet, but the gospels
accounts of Him are corrupted and do not show who He really was.
To Judaism He was a pretender claiming to be the Messiah
promised by the prophets. To the Christians He was the
long -awaited Messiah.
To see our way forward, then , we will next look at the authenticity
and trustworthiness of the New Testament. If it is not a reliable
account of the person and work of Jesus, we can narrow down our
options to Judaism and Islam. But if the New Testament is reliable
and trustworthy, then Islam can be rejected as inaccurate since it
contradicts the New Testament.
We can then look at the Tanakh, what Christians call the Old
Testament, to see if it has changed or is it trustworthy. If it is
trustworthy, what does it say about the Messiah and does the
Messiah look like Jesus? If the answers do not correspond to
what we know about Jesus, then we can reject Christianity and
embrace Judaism. On he other hand, if what we know about Jesus
does corespond to the teachings of the Tanakh, then we can
discount Judaism's view of Jesus.
apologetics and the Christian New Testament
Thus, our next step in apologetics is to investigate the New
Testament
Where did the New Testament come from?
It is interesting to note that the process of the creation of the New
Testament made it far more likely to exclude authentic Scripture than
to include false writings. The long process insured a helthy debate
from many different perspectives. And yet the majority of the books
of the New Testament enjoyed a sustained and overwhelming
support for inclusion. Bruce Metzger describes this process by
saying, "In the most basic sense neither individuals nor councils
created the canon; instead they came to perceive and acknowledge
the self-authenticating quality of these writings, which imposed
themselves as canonical upon the church. Merrill C. Tenney agrees,
saying, "The church did not determine the canon; it recognized the
canon."
The Gospel Writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Thus we see the New Testament has a very strong chain of tradition
surrounding its authorship by eyewitnesses or those who wrote down
what the eyewitnesses reported. The books that are not included in
the New Testament, useful though some may be, have no place in
the canon given the criteria for inclusion. Thus the Bible was written
by people who could reliably document the events they recorded.
To be continued:
Is the New Testament Reliable?
till then, God Bless!
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