El Apologista

Apologetics, apologist, Christianity, Costa Rica, Gospel, interview, Jorge Gil, Life history, salvation, SalvoMag.Com, Terrell Clemmons, Testimony, Theology and Christian Apologetics, truth
By Terrell Clemmons Jorge Gil: Next Gen Apologist to the World Jorge Gil was born in 1982 to a single mother in Costa Rica. When he was one year old, she left him in the care of his grandparents and moved to the United States, where she died ten years later. In the wake of her death, with a grandfather who was away most of the time, a grandmother who showed love by giving him whatever he wanted, and adolescence approaching, young Jorge started exploring. With no father figure and no boundaries, he soon discovered he liked liquor and pot, and both became regular pastimes. As in much of Latin America, the culture around him was nominally Catholic, and he could easily party all night and go to Mass the…
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Why Most Doubts About God Are Emotional, Not Intellectual (Part I)

Apologetics, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Doubts, Doubts about faith, Doubts about God, Emotional Doubts, Evidence, Mike Taylor, reasons to believe, Skeptics, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Mike Taylor If we’re honest, we would all admit that we have doubts about God to some degree or another. I mean, on some level, it almost feels like human nature to resist fully trusting anything. We doubt ourselves, we doubt other people, and more than anything, we doubt God. Doubt is normal. No matter who you are, you’re going to have doubts. Even biblical heroes such as Job, Abraham, David, Jeremiah, John the Baptist, Thomas, and Paul had doubts about God. But for some reason, too many of us think that doubts should be avoided. I think we get the idea that doubt is bad from a misapplication of Scripture. In Matthew 21:21, Jesus said we should pray without doubt, and incredible things will happen. So doubt must…
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13 Good Historical Reasons For The Early Dating Of The Gospels

4. Is the NT True?, Apologetics, Authors, Christianity, Dating of the New Testament, Erik Manning, Evidence, gospels, history, Is the New Testament True?, IsJesusAlive, New Testament Gospels, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Erik Manning Skeptics like Bart Ehrman will use Apollonius of Tyana as a challenge to Jesus’ uniqueness. Apollonius lived in the first century. His birth was supernatural. He also performed miracles and appeared to people after his death. Sounds familiar, right? Critics will then conclude that the story of Jesus isn’t special. Apologists will then retort that the Apollonius’ biography was written long after his death. It isn’t until about 100 years later that Philostratus wrote his biography. Therefore, the story we have about his life couldn’t be based on eyewitness testimony. But the Gospels are based on the accounts of witnesses. And this is where critics will say “Oh really? The Gospels came long after Jesus’ death too!” For example, here’s Bart Ehrman: “The very first surviving account of Jesus’ life was…
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The Impact of Divine Omnipresence to a Believer’s Life and Beyond

Bellator Christi, Brian Chilton, Christianity, Christians, God Omnipresence, Omnipresence, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Brian Chilton While God used apologetics to bring me back to faith, God uses theology to humble, awe, and comfort me before his amazing presence. Theology is a passion of mine. My resume will show how much I love theology. As I mentioned in a previous post, I realized that schools hiring teachers desire applicants to possess 18 hours of graduate study in a chosen field. Curious as to what hours I held, I began to investigate how many hours I possess in different fields. I realized that by the time I finish my Ph.D., I will carry 30 hours of theological study. I guess you could call me an overachiever. I certainly don’t say this to sound braggadocios. I merely mention this to note the great impact theology…
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Is Hell Torment or Torture and Is there a Difference?

Al Serrato, Apologetics, Christianity, Hell, Jesus, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Al Serrato Making a case for Christianity can be challenging in this secular culture. And what can be more challenging than explaining –no, than defending – the existence of a place of eternal punishment? It’s easy to be placed on the defensive, with an aggressive challenger deriding how a good and loving God could be so vindictive or petty as to subject his children to eternal torture simply because they didn’t “believe” the right things. But Jesus himself repeatedly spoke of Hell, so however difficult a conversation, it is one we cannot evade. Indeed, in some passages, Jesus likened Hell to the perpetual fires burning in the garbage dump outside Jerusalem, in the place called Gehenna. The Book of Revelation leaves us with the jarring image of the lake…
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Richard Dawkins’ Warnings Of A Godless Society

Apologetics, Atheism, Christianity, Faithful Thinkers, God, Godless Society, Luke Nix, Richard Dawkins, State, theism, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
By Luke Nix Introduction It was brought to my attention a few weeks ago that the notorious atheist Richard Dawkins may be changing his tune regarding the necessity of belief in God in human society (click or tap text to see the article). I do recall hearing winds of this change a couple of years ago when he seemed to make a distinction between the religions of Islam (threatening) and Christianity (benign). It seems that Dawkins recognizes that without the belief that people will be held responsible to a higher power, those people who are in power (the State) will push society further and further into harmful and devastating behaviors, but he recognizes the dangers of certain theistic religions. Dawkins seems concerned that without the (false on his view) belief that the Christian…
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The Death of Judas: A Hopeless Bible Contradiction?

4. Is the NT True?, Answering objections of skeptics, Apologetics, bible contradictions, Christianity, Death of Judas, Erik Manning, Is Jesus Alive, IsJesusAlive, New Testament, Skeptics, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics
Skeptics accuse Christians of not paying attention while they’re reading their Bible. If they didn’t rush through their daily devotional, they’d catch some obvious contradictions. One of the more famous of these contradictions is the two accounts of the death of Judas. Here’s Biblical scholar and critic Bart Ehrman: “The two reports give different accounts of how Judas died. However mysterious it may be to say he fell headlong and burst open, at least that is not “hanging” oneself. And they are flat out contradictory on two other points: who purchased the field (the priests, as per Matthew, or Judas, as per Acts?) and why the field was called the field of blood (because it was purchased with blood money, as Matthew says, or because Judas bled all over it,…
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Are Pro-Lifers Who Own Guns Hypocrites?

abortion, Apologetics, Christianity, Christians, FreeThinking Ministries, Guns, Legislating Morality, Legislating Morality, Culture & Politics, Nathan Apodaca, Pro lifers
Another assertion has become commonplace in discussions of abortion. Pro-lifers who own firearms, or support military actions abroad are misled at best, and at worst, hypocrites. The critic assumes that any inconsistently held pro-life beliefs are evidence pro-lifers aren’t actually motivated by a desire to protect human life, but rather a desire to control women’s liberty. This line of criticism lacks substance and misunderstands both the essential pro-life position as well as why people support gun rights or particular military actions. Suppose for a moment it’s true that the vast majority of pro-lifers are hypocritical in how they hold their views on protecting life across various issues. Would that supposition invalidate the pro-life position as a whole? The essential pro-life argument is as follows: It is wrong to intentionally kill…
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10 Ways to Get Your Kids More Interested in Their Faith

Apologetics for Parents, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, ChristianMomThoughts, Kids faith, Kids in the Church, Natasha Crain, theology
By Natasha Crain A couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak to four groups of parents during the Apologetics Canada conference (incidentally, if you live in the Long Branch, NJ, area, I’ll be speaking at the No Pat Answers conference on April 9). I ended up speaking with a lot of parents after these talks and heard some variant of one particular question repeatedly: “I’d love to have deeper conversations about faith with my kids, but how do I get them more interested in sitting down and having those discussions?” To answer that, I gave several of these parents a snippet of advice from my marketing background. Every day you probably see or hear some kind of advertisement for buying a new car. If you aren’t currently interested in…
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Seeking Shalom: A Case for The Way Things Ought to Be

Bob Perry, Christian Apologetics, Christianity, Crooked Creatures, Evil in the world, God, God Existence, theology, Theology and Christian Apologetics, True Horizon, World
By Bob Perry Sometimes defending God’s existence is easy. You don’t have to try to articulate some fancy philosophical or theological idea. And you don’t have to understand the intricacies of science. All you have to do is be a human being who observes the world in which we live. When you do that, there is no denying that something is drastically wrong. What we see around us is not the way things ought to be. Everybody from the most devoted religious believer to the most ardent atheist knows this. Our common human longing is for a world full of truth, justice, goodness, compassion, and charity. And while there are notable pockets of these things around us, they float in a sea of negativity and corruption. The fact that everyone realizes this is proof…
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