Category: Apologetics

33. Resurrection or Reincarnation?

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Reconnect 33

Many religions teach that the soul is eternal and that it passes on from one life to the next, being incarnate in a new body each time.  This teaching is called reincarnation.  It contradicts the teaching of resurrection that says this life is the only life humans have before a bodily resurrection of all the dead at the final judgment of the Lord.

Mike Shreve of Shreve Ministries shares why he used to believe in reincarnation, how he used to teach others about reincarnation, how the Lord saved him and brought him to embrace the resurrection of Christ and the future bodily resurrection of all the dead, and how he explains that reincarnation isn’t logically consistent.

Show Links:

Shreve Ministries

Free Download of Mike’s Testimony: Encountering God

Website for Mike’s Book, In Search of the True Light: The True Light

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29. What’s up with Presup?

>>>Episode 29 – “What’s up with Presup?” – CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!<<<
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Andy and Ben take a look at a video God or Absurdity posted that demonstrates what they call “an excellent summary of presuppositional apologetics”.

G or A
The video is a splice of two episodes of “On the Box” featuring Mark Spence answering the question: “What is presuppositional apologetics and how is it used?”  In the process of answering this question, Mark discredits the use of evidential apologetics.   He does this because he says the nonbeliever will discredit all evidence that is presented for the existence of God.

Andy and Ben disagree with Mark Spence on some of his points about evidential apologetics and they agree with him on some of his points about presuppositional apologetics.  Together, they make a case for using both presuppositional and evidential apologetics when sharing and defending the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Show Links:

God or Absurdity

“On the Box” Video on Presuppositional Apologetics

“Martyrs Read Joel Osteen Tweets” Video

God or Absurdity – “Other Religions” Page Featuring Contradict!

Andy Wrasman2 Comments

22. Mixed Martial Apologetics with J. Warner Wallace

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Christian apologists typically favor a specific approach to defending the Christian faith. These approaches, or methods, are numerous and each school of apologetics touts its top apologists as the best models to follow when training in apologetics. It’s not uncommon to see advocates for certain schools of apologetics debate why their chosen method is superior. J. Warner Wallace however argues that we don’t need to argue over which method is the best, but instead says we need to embrace and train in all of these various schools of apologetics. He calls this training in Mixed Martial Apologetics!

Reconnect Episode 22Andy asks Wallace to name and explain some of the branches of Christian apologetics and when he thinks they are best utilized. Andy closes by sharing arguments he has heard against such a mix-bag approach to apologetics, asking Wallace to make a case for Mixed Martial Apologetics.

J. Warner Wallace is the author of Cold-Case Christianity and God’s Crime Scene. Wallace’s many resources for training in Mixed Martial Apologetics are available at his site, coldcasechristianity.com.

Episode Links:

“What is Apologetics” by Andy Wrasman

“It’s Time to Train in MMA: Mixed Martial Apologetics” by J. Warner Wallace

J. Warner Wallace articles on Apologetics from his Blog

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Prescience in the Bible – Dietary Restrictions

As defined by William J. Cairney in Evidence for Faith prescience is “the occurrence, in Scripture, of accurate statements reflecting in-depth knowledge of scientific concepts far before mankind had laid the technological base for such things to be known.”

Cairney points out of course that prescience in the Bible isn’t an end in itself.  Such evidence only increases our knowledge of Scripture and appreciation for the God revealed in the Bible.

Cairney first focuses on the dietary laws in Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  The unclean animals in addition to not being eaten, weren’t even supposed to be touched if it could avoided at all costs (Leviticus 11:24-28).  Pigs were on the top of the “unclean” list.  The downer to the Jews is that they were readily available to be eaten and were of course tasty and tender.  The upside is that pigs, or swine, “harbor several disease-producing microorganisms easily transmissible to man” (Cairney, p.132 of Evidence for Faith). Such micro-organisms are tapeworms.  Diseases such as Trichinosis, Erysipelas, and Typhoid are all caused by micro-organisms that pigs carry. Some of these diseases are contracted by eating under-cooked meat, but others can be contracted simply by touching an infected animal or carcass.

Other “unclean” animals are marine animals without fins or scales, usually bottom-feeders; they eat fecal matter to put it nicely.  Rodents were unclean – enough said.  But they would have been accessible and likely tender, but they’re naturally carriers of some of the nastiest diseases man has ever faced.  Don’t eat, don’t touch, and surely you don’t want to be bitten!

Turtles and lizards were on the “naughty” list too.  Young kids who have these animals as pets sometimes get Salmonella!  Yay!  If they’re taken from stagnant water or contaminated water, they’re a source of disease inducing micro-organisms.

Basically, all the “unclean” animals can lead to disease in handling and eating if not properly kept.  The clean animals were quite chill in this regards.

Cairney also shares how some of the laws for keeping and growing plants also spared one’s self from disease-causing micro-organisms.

Exodus15:26 is a promise from God that if they follow these dietary laws he won’t bring diseases upon them. 
So how did Moses know this?  He didn’t have a microscope!  Most of this knowledge was only gleaned in the past 100 years.  Was he that observant?  Did the Egyptians know that much?  Maybe some other advance culture brought the info in to Moses?  Aliens perhaps?  Or the God of the Bible who created all things and didn’t need a microscope to know which animals carried micro-organisms which caused diseases told Moses which animals not to eat and which ones were cool to consume and handle.

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“You will die!” – One approach to Christian Apologetics

Dear readers, whoever you are.

This isn’t exactly what one usually would consider when they think of defending the Christian faith; the statement, “You will die.”  It’s not pretty.  It’s not nice.  We try not to think about it.  We try to push death out of our minds.  That’s why they call them casualties and not deaths!  That’s why they call them viruses, or the bird flu, or the swine flu, and not plagues! (Paraphrasing Henry Rollins) We don’t want to think about death!

To quote the Black Sabbath song, “After Forever,” “When you think about death do you keep your cool?”

Well to quote the song more, “I’ll be prepared when you’re lonely and scared at the end of our days.”  The answer in that song by Black Sabbath of course is “Jesus Christ is the only way to love.”

I know a pastor who sets up shop at university campuses.  He shares the good news of salvation with people.  However, if a person rejects the news.  If they are complacent, if they are ambivalent, he challenges them to consider the alternatives… what if there is no God, then you die and you are in the ground.  What if there is a God?  And you have rejected him? What if that God is Jesus?  What then?  Are you so sure… do you keep your cool when you think about death?

He told one student, “Well, just remember you are going to die.”  And the student left the conversation at that, but came back to him a month later and said, “Do you remember the last thing you said to me?”  The pastor did not.  The student said it had troubled him ever sense talking to him.  He finally came face to face with his own personal death, and was he so sure… was he so certain that he would be reincarnated as his faith taught.  The pastor shared, “Jesus will save you from that death. He paid for all of your sins.”

Part of apologetics is just properly explaining the Christian faith, and God’s Word can be divided into two camps, Law, and Gospel.  God’s Law shows us that we are sinners, that God’s wrath is upon us and that we justly deserve his eternal punishment.  God’s Gospel shows us our savior.  To learn more about Law and Gospel, click here.

So, you will die.  Worried?  Well, maybe you shouldn’t be complacent?  Don’t put off considering what lies beyond this life.  To be fair, I’ll say look to all religions, but I’d recommend looking to Christianity first, and I say this because it is objective, read 1 Corinthians 15 to know what I mean. That passage will show you the center of the Christian faith.  It will tell you where the Christian faith stands or falls.  It will show you that you are a sinner and that you will die for those sins, yet it also will show you the good news that Jesus died for sins, was buried, and on the third day rose from the grave as according to the Scriptures.

For more on sharing the Gospel on a college campus using a table-top evangelism style approach, listen to Reconnect Episode 6: Contradict – Campus Evangelism.

>>>Order Andy Wrasman’s book, Contradict- They Can’t All Be True.<<<

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