The Spiritual Condition of America, Politics, Culture, and Current Events Analyzed Through the Lens of Scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. What do you think of when you hear the word apologetics? Hi, Alex McFarland here. If you've followed our programming along at all, you know that really the foundation of our ministry has been apologetics.
Now, today I've got a very valued colleague on with me, Grant Garwood. He's from Kansas, and we're going to talk about some exciting things. But we're going to talk about how God's Word tells the church, and that includes every believer, to be ready to, yes, present the gospel, but to be able to really defend. The claims of Christianity. That's apologetics.
We're going to talk about the rise and relevancy of apologetics for Christians everywhere. And with me to talk about this is just a valued friend and colleague in the ministry, Grant Garwood. Hey, Grant, thanks for making time to be with us today. It's an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me, Alex.
Well, you and I have become great friends and really co-laborers around apologetics. I always love to hear how people, well, how people come to know the Lord, but how God guides them into apologetics.
So I want people to hear your story. Tell us about yourself. Who is Grant Garwood? How did you find Christ? And how did you get led into this exciting work of defending the Christian faith?
Sure.
Well, I grew up on a ranch in northern Nebraska, actually, almost into South Dakota.
So about 45 minutes south of the South Dakota border. Grew up into a great family, good parents, and I learned a work ethic, which I'm still thankful for today. But I grew up in church, grew up in a little Southern Baptist church about five miles from our house, which was about 10 or 15 miles outside of town. And so I grew up in a very small church, and I learned about all the stories in the Bible. And then eventually, if I fast forward, I went to college at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee, Oklahoma.
And then after that, I moved to Wichita, Kansas. Faith had always been a part of my life, but it wasn't something that I put at the very top like it should have been. And it was kind of in my mid to early 20s where God started calling me to. Learn more about him, study him. And there were some things that were going on at church that were kind of encouraging that.
And so that led to a number of different things to where I first heard the word apologetics, because I was in my mid-20s before I heard the word apologetics. And then from that, I started to look into these things and then started to get this idea in the back of my mind: am I just believing? What I'm believing because my parents told me to believe it, or do I actually believe it? And if the Bible is true, then I probably need to figure out if it's true because what it says. Tells me about my entire worldview.
If Jesus rose from the dead, is he who he said he was? All of those things. And so I really went on this journey for several years diving into all of the evidence, the apologetic, which we'll talk about here in just a little bit. But I dove into all that evidence and basically came to the conclusion after I went through everything that it was true, that there was a God, that the Bible was a reliable and trustworthy document, and that Jesus is who he said he was, and that he rose from the dead. And when I did that and I went through all of that evidence, I thought if I grew up in the church and I know 1% of what I've just discovered, I want everybody else to know this too.
So I compiled a really short book. It's about half an inch thick or so so that people will actually read it. But I just wanted people to have a snapshot of what all of this evidence is. You know, you talk about evidence that demands a verdict. You've written several really good books on this.
But I wanted people, well, for one, I'm not as smart as. You all. And so I wanted to be able to have just a small bite-sized piece of that that I could give to people and have these conversations. And so I just broke it down in three simple chapters: Is there a God? Is the Bible reliable and trustworthy?
And is Jesus who He said He was? And so I compiled that book, got it published about a year and a half or so ago now, and it's on.
Well, thank you. You know, anybody can really write a book. I just wanted to make sure that I was using sources like yourself and many other apologists that I could point to in that book to basically say, hey, don't take my word for it. Here's all the people that talk about this, and not just believers, skeptics, and atheists alike, that agree on these certain aspects of apologetics.
So I've really enjoyed the conversations that I've had with people, and it's just, it's opened. A lot of doors and led to this honest questions project that maybe we'll visit about in a bit. Yeah, I want to talk about that. Your website is honestquestionsproject.com, correct? Yes.
Yes. I really applaud what you're doing. And by the way, I know, Grant, you're near Wichita, Kansas. Is that right? Yes.
Now, folks, Grant has some events coming up, roundtable discussions. I think this is very innovative. And I want to challenge people, for one, attend if you can, because for one thing, you'll meet a young upcoming apologist that I'm very blessed and impressed by, Grant Garwood. But the other thing is, this is innovative. I just would love to see churches do these kinds of open QA.
Hey, if you're an unbeliever, if you're a skeptic, come, kick the tires, check it out, see what Christianity is about, at least give it some consideration.
So talk about your roundtable discussions. When are they? How can people learn more? Yeah, great. Thank you for asking.
So the larger events are two times per year, usually in April and October, and then those are followed by live Q ⁇ A at the end. Alex, you did one here this past April, and we opened it up for Q ⁇ A, and you did a wonderful job answering all of these questions from all of these different angles. But the roundtables will start in November, and we'll probably have two to three to maybe four if we need to each year. And myself and actually my pastor, Nathan Gunter, we're going to be doing those together. And the one that's coming up in November is going to be on the reliability of the Bible.
So is the words that we have today, are those reliable? Have those been accurately transmitted throughout history? Talk a little bit about the translations, what that looks like, and how do we even have the Bible that we have today? How do we have, for example, the 27 books of the New Testament that we have today and kind of walk through that and show how the Bible has been consistent throughout the last 2,000 years? That's great.
A longtime friend, just a beloved brother in the gospel, Greg Kochl. Am I correct? That you've got Greg Kochle coming to Wichita. Is that right? Yeah, Greg Kochal is coming October 3rd to the Cozine Life Events Center here on the northeast side of Wichita.
And his topic actually for that night is Jesus, man, or myth. And one of the neat things about that topic is he's going to talk about the historical Jesus, but much of his talk is actually not even going to be using the Bible because we have so much evidence outside of the Bible of who Jesus was, who he said it, what he said about himself, rather, and the early Christian movement.
So it's going to be a unique talk, and then, of course, followed by a live QA as well. And the date, the address, how people can come, that's at honestquestionsproject.com, right? Yes. And the date is October 3rd, and the time is 6:30 to 8. And the address, I don't know that off the top of my head, but it's on the northeast side of Wichita.
And the event center is Cozine Life Event Center. And you'll find that if you Google that here in Wichita. Yeah, and you know, folks, in talking with Grant Garwood, my guest, this is innovative. And no matter where you are in America, it's been our joy to be in over 2,000 churches throughout America. But let me say, you can do this and be creative.
We present the gospel, the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. We put our faith in Christ. He forgives our sin. We present. Very often, we explain the gospel.
But more and more, we have to be able to defend. And when we come back, we're going to continue with Grant Garwood. We're going to talk about what are some of the claims of Christianity that need to be defended and in the heart of a skeptical world. But the good news is they can be defended in a very compelling way. And every church, 345,000 churches in America, if we all get on board with lifting up Jesus and showing the world that this is true, this is real, this is compelling.
God's going to use it. Stay tuned more after this brief break. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Hey, this is producer Mike here from the Alex McFarlane Show.
Why are so many Christians divided over important issues? In his powerful book, 10 Issues That Divide Christians, Alex tackles the biggest questions facing the church today. Alex helps believers navigate difficult topics while staying grounded in God's Word. If you're ready to strengthen your faith and better understand today's spiritual challenges, get your copy of 10 Issues That Divide Christians Today, wherever books are sold. Uh He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely.
Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. You know, it's a privilege to see God at work. We just wrapped up eight summer camps, hundreds of teenagers, hundreds of salvation decisions.
And, you know, my dear friend Grant Garwood is with me, and I rejoice in how God is raising him up. But wherever you are, Do you know the Lord has incredible things he wants to do in and through you? And my challenge and my commitment personally, and my wife Angie, and my challenge to all of us, that we would do something with our life for Christ's great commission. With me being used by God, he's married to Sydney. They're in the Midwest, Middle America, and God is using them greatly.
It's my friend Grant Garwood of the Honest Questions Project. Welcome back to the show, brother. And hey, man, you're a busy guy, but thanks for making time to be with us. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Alex.
I appreciate it. You know, before the break we were talking about uh the evidence, the word evidence, and that's very true. I want to talk if if we could about what are the claims you've been around university ministry, Ministering to people, what are the claims of Christianity that people want a little bit of proof about? In your opinion, Grant.
Well, you know, you and I have talked about this some, but there's, there's a lot of... I would say kind of top contenders for that, but I would say the resurrection is one of those. Obviously, the issue with the Canaanites, you get that question quite a bit as well. But I would say the resurrection comes up a lot, and maybe that's because of my posture in conversations. Because when people want to think about Christianity and we're talking through that, Well, as you and I have talked about, the resurrection is central, right?
The Apostle Paul says, if Christ has not been raised from the dead, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. And if Jesus did not rise from the dead, then Christianity is quite literally not a thing. It stopped with Jesus, but it is a thing. And there's a reason that we're still talking about it 2,000 years later. And the evidence of the resurrection is extremely compelling.
And your great friend, Gary Habermas, talks a lot about this. I actually just purchased his first magnum opus book, and I'm going through that right now. But there's just so much evidence for the resurrection. And I think when you look at the alternatives, and I would just encourage listeners, if they have some skepticism about this, One of your jobs should be to try to disprove the resurrection. Because I think when you start to go through that, you start to see these other theories, and there's a handful of them, but all of these theories have, all these alternative theories have different problems with them.
And I think it's very interesting that when you get groups of people that think, well, I think this one works best, this one works best, or this one works best, then you start to get disagreements among that because there's so many people that think this one is flawed for this or that reason.
So they can't, you know, really even come to a conclusion as to the best alternative for that. And We were talking about this earlier, but if you, and I did this as a thought experiment, I typed in chat GPT and I said, from a purely historical perspective on all the data and evidence that we have. What does that say about Jesus' resurrection? Is the evidence that we have, does it prove that Jesus rose from the dead? What's the best evidence, or what's the best explanation, rather, for the evidence that we have?
And you know what ChatGPT says, Alex? It says that the best evidence that we have says that Jesus rose from the grave from a historical perspective. And how cool is that? Isn't that awesome? Isn't that awesome?
Because it's really true. Let me ask you this.
Okay, if Christ rose. And the evidence is compelling that he did. There's no other really good explanation. If Jesus rose, What may we derive from that, Grant? That is a big question, and you could probably spend a full course semester on that topic.
But if Jesus rose from the dead, it changes everything. And we were also talking about this earlier, but if Jesus rose from the dead, then Christianity is true. And what makes Christianity totally And completely unique from every other worldview, in my opinion, is that it is a free gift from God. And here's the difference, in my opinion. that the the evidence for Christianity is Massive.
You could point to so many different areas of evidence, but if it's true, then it's different from every other worldview in that it is faith. It is a free gift, and it is not our works that accomplish that. And Ephesians 2:8 and 9 talks about that, right? It is the gift of God, and not by works, so that no man may boast. And I wholeheartedly agree with that.
And so, when we take that step of faith, we ask Jesus to come into our lives, be the Lord of our life, and turn from our sin and follow Him, then we will have eternal life. John 17:3 says, And this is eternal life, to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, the one whom He sent. And I really just want people to. to know that. You know, the London Times did a study.
It was actually about November of 25, so not quite a year ago. But they said that kids today will spend 30% of their life on a screen. If on average a person is born, average lifespan, and this is Europe, but I wouldn't think America is too much different, but 75 years. Plus or minus, that a mobile device, a screen, a laptop, kids today will spend $20. Twenty-five years holding and looking at a screen.
Yeah. And grant what's um You know, I'm not anti-technology. We all use technology every day. But I see a lot on YouTube that really bothers me. I'm on YouTube, you're on YouTube.
But yeah, I've spent a lot of time studying History, archaeology, the Bible, theology, philosophy, logic, mathematics, the various things that all, all point to the validity of a biblical worldview. They really do. God exists, the Bible is true, Christ is authentic. But I'll see YouTube videos that are just wildly inaccurate. from somewhat off kilter to absolutely blasphemous.
Now the reason I'm belaboring this question is, if people are spending thirty percent of their life on a screen, How important is it that Christians know what they believe, churches proclaim what is true, and then churches equip people to filter out fact from fiction? true from false. How important is it in this screen time digital wired up world? Grant.
Well, it's funny how the truth of God transcends time, right?
So things that were written a couple thousand years ago are still relevant today. And being able to give a defense or give an answer, as 1 Peter 3:15 says, give an apologetic for what you believe. It was true back then when first in First Peter was writing to the church that was suffering persecution, and it's still true today. And so, when we think about the YouTube, when we think about the TikTok videos that are famous for this, you're right, we see things that say something to the effect of the Bible was written hundreds of years after Jesus walked the earth, or the Bible was constructed and voted on in this smoke-filled back room from all these politicians. And that's just it is so far from what actual truth and reality is.
And so, I think, in my opinion, when you try to break down the walls and break down some of the barriers for seekers and skeptics, it's not even necessarily that you have to just really beat down the wall, it's just removing some of the misconceptions that people have been dealing with because they've been bombarded with YouTube and TikTok and all these videos. And so, if I were to encourage video, encourage viewers rather to do one thing a little bit differently, it would probably be to speak. A little less time on your phone and a little less screen time, right? Because there's lots of things that need done, like studying scripture and some things that we're working on as a ministry. That if I sat and watched Netflix every night for two to three hours, there's a lot of life that wouldn't get accomplished.
And I think Matthew 28 is pretty clear on the Great Commission: go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I'm with you to the very end of the age.
So I just, there is too much life to be grasped here. And for us, our calling is too big for us to be sitting on our phone for two to three hours a night.
So.
Well said, well said. The voice you're hearing is Grant Garwood, a friend, a colleague in apologetics, a ministry that is so relevant, and you can be a part of an apologetic outreach in your own area. When we come back, we're going to talk about some of the practical ways to implement apologetics into our walk and witness. Don't go away. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland, a religion and culture expert.
Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Christian author and speaker Alex McFarland is an advocate for Christian apologetics. Teaching in more than 2,200 churches around the world, schools, and college campuses, Alex is driven by a desire to help people grow in relationship with God. He arms his audiences with the tools they need to defend their faith, while also empowering the unchurched to find out the truth for themselves. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way.
With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, The Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, Visit alexmacfarlane.com or you can contact us directly by emailing. Booking at alexmacfarland.com. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarlane Show.
Welcome back to the program. We're just rejoicing in the fact that God's word is true. And we have a commission. Talk about something to live for, folks. We get to be, if you're a believer, you get to be a witness, an ambassador for Christ.
And I love that New Testament verse that tells us in Mark 16, 15, that we are to proclaim the good news to every creature. And some are called to go to the ends of the earth, but maybe you're called to go to the end of your neighborhood sidewalk and invite people to church. With me talking about this is Grant Garwood. I'll resume with Grant in just a moment, but I do want to refer everybody to our website, alexmacfarland.com. AlexMcFarland.com.
You can learn about things we're doing on TV, radio. I've been very blessed to have articles posted. Published all this year, places like townhall.com, Fox News, National Newsmax. And so please pray for us and know that our ministry exists to evangelize the lost and to equip the saved. And by the way, our growing staff, we have employees now, various departments.
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Well, I want to resume our conversation with Grant Garwood. Grant, I've got two questions. The first of which is, what advice might you have for people? No matter where, you know, 50 states, there's churches of every strata, and we love them all, been to so many of them. People say, okay, I get it, a searching generation.
We need to help them find Christ. What advice might you give a local church about how to begin to incorporate apologetics into their outreach and discipleship?
Well, that's a good question, Alex. And it's something that honestly we're trying to think through also and see what works best. And I think reaching out to other churches that are doing it well is one way to do that. We often have what we call life discipleship classes that are often eight to ten weeks on like a Wednesday evening. The kids get dropped off down the hall and they study and listen to what they're going to listen to on that end.
And then we have our gathering. And I think starting to include those, so oftentimes it's like a men's study or women's study, but starting to include some apologetics styles or apologetics topics that we can speak to, I think, would really help the church grow and at least help them understand how much evidence there is. That we can look to and point people to. And then I think that will allow them to become a little bit more hungry as well, as it did for me. Amen.
Amen. That's great. I always love to ask people this next question. And it's about the people and the books that have influenced you. Because, you know, you mentioned Greg Kochal is coming.
And I think you and I have a mutual friend in Sean McDowell. You know, Sean is the son of Josh McDowell and great, great, great leaders who we just love and we collaborate with regularly. But I want to hear the books and the individuals that have influenced you in Sydney. And maybe you might even give us a homework assignment of some books that we could seek out. But so here's a question.
If you're stuck on a desert island, other than the Bible, you can take three books, the books that have really shaped your life. What would some of those be, Grant? Good question. I'll answer the people and the books if I could. Obviously, people, that's going to be you, Alex.
And then the book that would go along with that is Top 10 Objections to Christianity. And Alex paid me some money before I said that.
So take that with a check is in the mail. Yeah, drop it in there. You're very kind. But obviously, Alex, you've been a huge influence on me. And then also Jay Warner Wallace and his effective communication.
Cold case Christianity was big for me at the beginning because it kind of encompasses everything. And then obviously, we've got Frank Turek, Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist, and some really good general apologetics books. And then when you look at more of a, so that's, that's, I'll say two of the three. And then the case for the resurrection by Gary Habermas and Mike Lacona, who we talked about. Earlier, Alex.
And he's gone on and has a four-volume set now. Gary Habermas does on the resurrection, so much evidence there. But those would be some of the main books. And then I also really enjoy John Lennox and Stephen Meyer, kind of on the rationality and science end of things. And those people have helped me greatly.
And then, I mean, you got to throw in C.S. Lewis as well. I mean, I've got right behind me here, I think if I don't know if you can see if we're not on a screen, but a whole probably six or seven set of C.S. Lewis. I mean, there have just been a lot of people that I'm grateful for.
And, you know, prior to this, I didn't even like to read. And now it's pretty hard to get me out of a book. I just read, read, read. Amen. Amen.
God bless you. God bless you. Well, it's exciting. Do you know what? We last summer, summer of 25, we were doing our camps.
And I give God the glory, a teenage boy had come to Christ. And I do. With middle school and high schoolers talking about how to begin to read the Bible and what are the big themes in the Bible. And this, I'm going to say it was about a 10th grade boy. He came up to me so excited.
He said, I read my Bible 45 minutes yesterday. He said, I've never really been a reader, but I read the Bible 45 minutes and I wasn't even on my meds. Awesome. And I mean, that was really. You know, Romans 12 talks about that the word of God renews our mind.
Really. And Grant, I love to hear you talk about these books because I could share some as well. But I think God's people need to be readers. The church should be a place where we attend to the life of the mind. Would you agree?
Oh, absolutely. And I always try to be careful when I talk about apologetics that apologetics is not a replacement of anything.
So that doesn't mean that you put your Bible down and you pick up C.S. Lewis as an example. C.S. Lewis, if you go back to kind of the early church, we would consider C.S. Lewis as being edifying to read and fruitful to read, but it's not a replacement of scripture.
So I often start with scripture. And once I finish that in the morning, then I move to these other books and read these books in the evenings. But there's just so many different ways of thinking through these things and coming at it from different angles. Man, if I could encourage anybody, it's read, read, read. Amen.
Amen. Do you have a favorite apologetics topic? There's kind of three, and so I'll do them real quick. If somebody said, Why do you believe in Christianity? Obviously, the resurrection is big on that list and at the top.
But I also like the argument from the fine-tuning of the universe. I think that is so hard to get around. And so, the fine-tuning of the universe, the resurrection, and then also the disciples. And, you know, we don't have absolute concrete evidence that every one of the disciples or Jesus' followers died for the faith, but we know they were willing to do that. And we also know that several of them did die.
So, to me, that when you pair all those three things together and then include that the disciples got nothing for that, they didn't get any favors or money or power or anything. All that they got in many cases was persecution, and yet they felt it was important enough to share the gospel with others on threat of their own life.
So, those three things are huge in my mind. Absolutely. You mentioned Stephen Meyer. He and I had the privilege of working together.
Some through focus on the family. And he's written and done a lot on the anthropic principle and the fine-tuning of that this universe seems intentionally created for human life. We're almost out of time, but God's Word, the Bible, favorite passages, or favorite book, favorite passage. Where does your heart go in God's Word, Grant? Great question.
I always go straight to Acts 20, 24. And this is Paul writing in Acts or being recorded in Acts. And he says, However, I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace. And that is something I say to myself every morning. And it helps the posture of what I live like each day to know that I'm not here for myself.
I'm here to testify to the gospel of God's grace. And using apologetics and God's word is, I think, how I can do that. Wow, that is so beautiful. The voice you've been hearing is Grant Garwood, our dear friend in the apologetics ministry. His website is honestquestionsproject.com.
I think you'll be blessed and maybe even inspired by seeing what he's doing. And maybe in your town, folks, you could do something similar. And, you know, that's. As he said, Acts 20, 24, folks, our life should be all about Jesus, growing in Christ, and making others aware of the gospel and the love of Jesus. We're out of time.
Thank you for listening. Stay strong, stay bold, and remember. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Alex McFarland Ministries are made possible through the prayers and financial support of partners like you. For over 20 years, this ministry has been bringing individuals into a personal relationship with Christ and has been equipping people to stand strong for truth.
Learn more and donate securely online at alexmacfarlane.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YES God and the number one. That's 1-877-Y-E-S-G-O-D-1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of the Alex McFarlane Show.
Producer Mike for the Alex McFarlane Show, listen to this. Alex is the Christian voice we need right now. I love listening to him and the guests he has on the show are just amazing. I highly recommend his podcast. Great words, Alex.
Well, we give God the glory. We thank the listeners for kind sentiments like that, but we give God all the glory. But folks, please listen in, spread the word. You're spreading the gospel. Tell others about our programming, and we sincerely thank you.
