Prepared to Give a Reason - Introduction
The following is a brief four-week crash course on Apologics that I taught during a weekly Bible study for Summit Church. In this course, I focus on what I consider to be four foundational apologetics arguments. In my opinion, these arguments ought to be central to our own faith and to our effors to share our faith with others. In particular, I have tried to select arguments that argue for the truth of Christianity in particular as opposed to a more generic form of theism. Readers are welcome to copy and reuse any material they find useful. If you find any factual mistakes, please contact me and I will make corrections as soon as possible.
The handouts were distributed during the course. The accompanying blog posts sketch the outline of the argument for each week and give some practical tips for employing them in day-to-day conversations. I'd suggest starting with the blog posts to get an idea of the topic of each class before looking at the handouts.
- Week 1 - Lord, Liar, Lunatic - Are the New Testament gospels historically reliable? Who is Jesus?
- Week 2 - The Resurrection - Is there historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus?
- Week 3 - God and revelation - How do we know God exists? How do we know what God is like?
- Week 4 - Sin and the gospel - What is our moral condition? Do we need a savior?
Related material:
- All Christians are Apologists
- Apologetics - based on Tim Keller's The Reason for God
- Who Is Jesus? Course Notes
- Apologetics Boot Camp
If anyone reading this essay has questions about it or about Christianity in general, feel free to e-mail me at Neil -AT- Shenvi.org. I also highly recommend the book The Reason for God by Tim Keller and would be happy to send you a copy for free if you email me your mailing address.