I’ve never been super worried about apologetics and knowing how to defend my faith against other religions because I honestly haven’t had a whole lot of encounters where I had to. Growing up in a Christian school from pre-k through high school graduation, I didn’t have a whole lot of friends who disagreed with me. Granted, I did have some, but most were Christians who grew up southern baptist just like me. I had the huge privilege of growing up in an awesome Christian family that not only taught me God’s Word but really lived it out, too. I don’t ever want to take that blessing for granted. But for a lot of us who grow up in Christian families and environments, we can grow up believing in God and His Word just because it’s what we’ve been taught. We can know more truth from our upbringing than we find for ourselves by reading it in the Bible on our own. But we have access to scripture, the actual living Word of God (Hebrews 4:12).

What do we do, then, when we enter into a world that can be hostile to Christianity and tries to attack the Biblical Christian faith? What happens when someone denies the deity of Jesus or the validity of Scripture? That’s where apologetics come in.
Researching the validity of the Bible is pretty neat, actually. Manuscripts, Archaeology, Prophecy, and Statistics (MAPS) all heavily point to the validity of Scripture. Dead Sea Scrolls found years after the Bible was canonized support its accuracy. Archaeologists have found plenty of evidence of people and places referenced in the Bible. The prophecies fulfilled from Old Testament to New are staggering. Statistically, the Bible was written by 40 different authors on three different continents yet retains its fluidity and cohesiveness.

Really, just to prove the deity of Jesus is huge in a conversation with someone who disagrees with the Biblical worldview. Jesus is thought by many to have been a great moral teacher but nothing more, or a god rather than the God. However, that logic just doesn’t make sense. A great moral teacher wouldn’t have been a liar, claiming to be God. Jesus claims to be one with God the Father (John 10:30), so He wasn’t a god… He was either God Himself or no God at all. Some might even doubt His death and/or resurrection, yet no argument stands. God is sovereign and no matter what comes up against Him, His Word, and His Gospel, nothing can disprove it. The Bible has stood the test of time. It applies to our lives today. If we believe it to be true (and we have no reason not to), it changes things. Our life has to be impacted because of what the Bible says. If 2 Timothy 3:16-17 is true and all Scripture is God-breathed, like the very exhale of God, then our life should hang on every word within this book. The God of the universe has given us His Word to reveal Himself to us, instruct us, convict us, to SAVE us (James 1:21). What are we to do with it now?? Abide in it (John 15), delight in/meditate on it (Psalm 1:2), do what it says (James 1:22), handle it accurately (2 Timothy 2:15). And while we’re at it, we can dig into why we can believe it to be absolute truth. Scripture proves itself true internally time and time again. But we can externally find so much evidence in support of its validity. Secular writers who lived during the time frame of Jesus and the gospels, like Josephus, give accounts confirming what is contained in scripture. We have every reason to believe, not much reason to doubt; but any skepticism we’re left with gives us the room to have faith in a God of love who has given us His Son and His Word and when we accept Him, gives us His Holy Spirit. He knows the depths of our hearts and yet He desires to be known by us. And one of my favorite promises in scripture is in Jeremiah 29:12-13… that when we seek Him we will find Him if we seek Him with all our heart. He will be found by us. Amen!