Dave’s Monday Blast – August 19, 2024
Good Morning from Decatur Tennessee. If you ever find yourself in this part of the country we would love to provide a little room and board.
An Apologist is one who can articulate the following:
1. What they believe
2. Why they believe it
3. Can defend said belief within the Market Place of Ideas.
Everyone develops their Worldview over the course of their lives. Of course much of who we are and what we believe is encoded by the age of five; speaking of course to the value of family. Our environment of course plays a critical role helping to shape our thinking, but that of course is also tied to family.
INTENTIONAL men of God understand that in God’s economy, family is wrapped up in the Word of God. Above all else the words of our Creator, or the lack thereof, has the greatest impact on what we believe and why we believe it, and provides the tools to be able to defend our faith in His Word.
I want to spend a couple weeks articulating an apologetic for the Word as it is the foundation for the what, why and how of the Christian Faith.
As I have mentioned before, Christian Ministries International is one of my go-to apologetic organizations. They do a masterful job of making the seemingly challenging-simple (I desperately need this!).
Biblical Inspiration:
a. The Bible is a collection of 66 books, written by 40 different authors, over 1,500 years ago, in 3 different languages, and on 3 different continents.
b. Remarkably, in light of the above facts, the Bible exhibits a common theme and storyline from beginning to end – God’s love and plan of salvation for humanity – while also containing no errors or contradictions.
c. The incredible uniformity and consistency that we see in the Bible is truly miraculous. In fact, it is powerful evidence testifying to the fact that the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
d. When Christians speak of the inspiration of Scripture they are referring to the process whereby God superintended the writing of the Bible through the Holy Spirit’s guidance in the lives of its human authors.
I would suggest owning a copy of “Evidence that Demands a Verdict” by Josh McDowell (there are 2 volumes), and he does a masterful job of demonstrating the truth specific to content reliability from original writings to today.
Next week I want to unpack a few simple talking points from McDowell to demonstrate why we can have 100 % confidence in the Word of God being exactly what it claims to be. We shall also wrap up these Biblical Inspiration Apologetic points.
