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The Alex McFarland Show-144-Questions and Answers About Apologetics

Alex McFarland Show / Alex McFarland
The Truth Network Radio
January 14, 2025 12:00 am

The Alex McFarland Show-144-Questions and Answers About Apologetics

Alex McFarland Show / Alex McFarland

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January 14, 2025 12:00 am

On this week’s episode of The Alex McFarland Show, Alex discusses how we can be ready to defend Christianity by addressing the most common questions that have been asked by using apologetics. Christianity is true and worth believing. Listen as he answers questions about apologetics, and challenges us to stand on the truth of the Bible, God’s Word.

Scriptures:

1 Peter 3:15

Jude 1:6

Colossians 2:8

2 Timothy 3:16

2 Peter 1:21

Isaiah 53

1 John 2:27

Psalm 119:18

James 1:5

John 5:390


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Books Mentioned:

Evidence that Demands a Verdict

More than a Carpenter

100 Bible Questions and Answers

100 Bible Questions and Answers for Families

Coming in Fall of 2025 - 100 Questions and Answers on Prophecy and the End Times

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The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of scripture. Welcome to the Alex McFarland Show. Apologetics.

What does that mean? Hi, Alex McFarland here. Welcome to the program.

In this program, I'm going to answer some questions from radio listeners and the email questions we get. And I'm going to talk a little bit about what really has been our core ministry from the beginning, which is apologetics. Now, the word apologetic, or the Greek word from which we get the word apologetics, occurs well over a dozen times in the New Testament. And I give God the glory.

I've had the privilege of writing extensively on this. And I was in a church speaking and a person came up and said, I don't like that word because I do not apologize for being a Christian. And let me say what apologetics is not. Apologetics is not apologizing. I know it might sound a little bit like it because we talk about, you know, giving an apology, but it really is an ancient legal word, which means to speak in defense of something. We find it in the writings of the Greek philosophers twenty two hundred years ago. But in the Bible, probably the most famous verse associated with apologetics is 1 Peter 3.15, which famously says, set apart Christ as Lord in your heart and be ready always to give an answer to everyone who asks a reason for the hope that you have.

Do this with, the King James says meekness and fear, but more modern translations will say, give this answer, give this defense with gentleness and respect. Now, the word answer and the word reason found in 1 Peter 3.15 is the word apologia, the Greek word, and it means to speak in defense of something. Very often in our seminars, we talk about giving the evidence to present, explain, defend Christianity. Now, let me give you several of the purposes of scriptural evidence, sound reasoning, the proofs for God and Christianity. I would say it can do several things. It can defend, it can refute, it can persuade, and it can strengthen.

Let me explain. If a person says, you know, I don't believe in Christianity, I reject that Christianity is true. Well, in defending the faith, we're arguing that Christianity is true and it's worth believing so we can defend the claims of the Bible and the claims of the Christian faith. Now, apologetics also can be useful in refuting false teaching because, you know, like Jude 1 verse 6 says that we are to earnestly contend for the faith. We are to present and even refute false teachings. Colossians 2.8 talks about that. It can persuade. And I've seen this just a few days ago on live radio. A man called in with a Bible question and on live radio, and this was just a day or so after the new year, I said, look, your question has an answer.

We begin to discuss it. And on live radio with millions of listeners, I said, look, if Christianity were true, would you believe it? If Jesus really is the Son of God and he really rose from the dead and by faith in Christ, we're forgiven, we're saved. If Christianity really were true, in other words, reality, would you want to believe it? And he kind of paused and he said, yes.

And I said, how about right now? And on live radio, very emotional, this man prayed to accept Christ and the Lord did it. The Holy Spirit of God was drawing him, but God used good content and he was persuaded. But Christianity also, I think, is strengthened in the mind of individual believers as we look at good reasoning, the faithful, accurate handling of scripture, in other words, apologetics. In my opinion, it's like this two edged sword.

It can defend, but it can also equip. I would say in the 35 years that I've been a born again believer, and I remember, I well remember as a 21 year old college student, I began to read the books by Josh McDowell, merely because I wanted to try to share the gospel with some of my buddies at school. I discovered apologetics. I own these two books to this day, Evidence That Demands a Verdict and More Than a Carpenter, both by the great Josh McDowell.

I'm kind of weird. I read the footnotes. And besides those books being wonderful, in the notes, I discovered names like C.S.

Lewis and G.K. Chesterton and Chuck Colson and, of course, Norm Geisler, Francis Schaeffer, and people like that. Apologetics, I think, has contributed hugely to my own growth in the word, and it will yours. So I want to challenge you, and I've got some exciting, exciting news about what our ministry is doing this year in terms of biblical worldview and apologetics all across America. But I want to go over some questions, and we've addressed these in our books. One Hundred Bible Questions and Answers, that was volume one, came out about four years ago. And then two years ago, we did a follow up, One Hundred Bible Questions and Answers for Families. Well, fall of twenty-five, I Give God the Glory, our third in this series, and this will release in early September, One Hundred Bible Questions on Prophecy and the End Times. So there are no limit of questions people have. But the good news is there are answers. And so in that spirit, let's go over some of the questions that come in. And one is, why do Christians say the Bible is God's word? How can we know? In fact, I had a meeting earlier today with a person who is struggling through some spiritual issues.

I'm praying this person comes to Christ. But the question came up. Evangelical Christians are insistent on the Bible being God's word.

How do we know this? Well, let's talk about it, because the Bible is not only an important book to Christians. The Bible is really the book.

I told this skeptic, and I would say right now, you cannot understand history. You can't understand world history nor the present moment unless you really take into consideration what the Bible says. And Christians believe that the words of the Bible are from God, and as such, are perfect and important for our lives today. Now, for one thing, the Bible claims to be from God. 2 Timothy 3.16 says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And 2 Peter 1.21 says that the prophecy of Scripture never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. So Christians believe that the words of the Bible are from God.

I believe that, and I think the evidence is compelling that it is. Now, how can we say that the Bible exhibits the evidence of being of supernatural origin? Well, for one thing, look at the prophecies of Scripture. Hundreds of predictions have been fulfilled to exact detail from the death of Messiah prophesied in Isaiah 53, 750 years before the birth of Christ. Jesus's birth and life and death were prophesied.

The destruction of Jerusalem was prophesied, the deportation of the Jewish people to Babylon, and the prediction of the fall of the Jerusalem temple in AD 70. And so the Bible has fulfilled prophecy. Now, we've got to take a break, and we're going to come back and we're going to take more questions and give what I feel like are good factual answers, plus apologetics fodder for the challenge 1 Peter 3.15 lays down that we always be ready to give an answer. Stay tuned. More apologetics after this. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert.

Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Are you tired of liberal agendas ruining our country but you don't know what to do about it? That's why Truth and Liberty Coalition was founded. We want to equip you to take back our country and impact the world. Here's how we do it. We educate through broadcasts, conferences, and our website with resources that inform, equip, and motivate. We unify by collaborating with like-minded organizations like the Family Research Council, the Family Policy Alliance, and My Faith Votes. We mobilize by providing practical tools you can use to impact your local community.

As Christians, we are called to make disciples of nations. Together, we can change the course of our country for good. Join Truth and Liberty to connect with believers and organizations who not only want to see a change in our nation, but a community that is actually doing something about it. Join us online for our broadcast and subscribe for relevant updates on our website truthandliberty.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland Show.

Welcome back to the program. We're talking about the question, why do Christians say that the Bible is the Word of God? Let me say that the Bible was composed by human writers, but they were inspired by God. Now, I've had skeptics say to me, they'll say, Well, the Bible was written by men.

Therefore, it must be a finite human work. But just as a stenographer can take down the conversation heard in a courtroom, or a stenographer or secretary can take down the words of a president or a leader, even though it may have been a human penman, that doesn't negate the fact that the author of those words and the origin of that content was God. Now, the first five books of the Old Testament were written by Moses, a man who heard God's voice at the burning bush on Mount Sinai, and he was given the Ten Commandments. But God spoke through Moses. David, the shepherd king, a man after God's own heart, composed the psalms, but they were the words of God given to him. And the New Testament was written by the apostles of the Lord. Now, the apostles were those who had seen the risen Jesus. And even skeptics that I've interviewed or debated, like Bart Ehrman and Christopher Hitchens, acknowledge that the New Testament appeared to have been written by Christian Jews sometime before the end of the first century. Now, the Bible is also striking in the unity of the content. I mean, you think about this, 66 books composed by about 40 human writers on three continents in actually three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, over a period of about 1500 years. Now, I've had this little experiment in many of our camps and conferences, I would ask, you know, an audience of 100 people, you know, what's wrong with the world?

What would fix it? And what are the highest hopes and dreams of the human heart? And you'll get dozens of different answers. But despite much variety in their background, the themes and the details of the Bible complement one another as if they were written by one voice and one author. And I think this is an evidence of the divine author God. And it provides supplemental support for the fact that the words of the Bible are inspired.

Now, we're making what you might call a cumulative case apologetic, taken by themselves, maybe not one single of these facts is all that especially compelling. But when you look at all of these things, the preservation of the manuscripts, the fulfilled prophecy, the unified message, and one more thing, the evidence of the Bible to change millions of lives. There have been many books that have inspired large numbers of people, but no book's impact possibly compares with that of the Bible. The Bible's words have been the basis for historic documents throughout history, such as the US Constitution.

The Bible's content has been the basis for countless teachings, books, plays, poems, songs, novels. I just have a letter right here from an inmate who listens to us on radio from a prison. And they write to say that they spent years running from God and even mocking our show. But this person said they began to read the Bible and maybe with an eye toward refuting.

And eventually they became convinced that this clear, cohesive message was worth believing. This inmate, we've had hundreds of letters like this over the years, but is now a believer. And I think about my friends, Lee Strobel, a skeptic and law degree from Yale University, was going to refute the Bible. He became a Christian. Jim Wallace, I'll be with J. Warner Wallace in August at the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina. Jim Wallace, you've no doubt you've seen him on Dateline with Keith Morrison. And J. Warner Wallace was one of America's highly regarded detectives, able to solve unsolved murders, cases that could not be cracked. And Jim Wallace was an atheist up until his fifties, and somebody challenged him, you know, Hey, smart guy, why don't you look at the evidence for the Bible? Well, J. Warner Wallace became a Christian. And using courtroom technique and the rules of evidence that had given him a decorated career in law enforcement, he began to look at Christianity and he became a Christian. He wrote the book Cold Case Christianity. He and I, by the way, if you want to go to the website, thecove.org, Jim and I will be there in August of this year together teaching you apologetics.

Come if you would like, and we'll do a deep dive on how to defend the Christian faith. But also let's take into consideration the fact that the Bible has shown itself to be a highly accurate historical document. If skeptics could show that the Bible had many historical errors, then the Bible's divine nature could be compromised. But history and archaeology continue repeatedly to affirm the accuracy of scripture.

And that should increase our confidence in its divine origin. Entire cultures and buildings and historical accounts that at one time skeptics questioned, if not rejected outright, have been shown to be accurately preserved in the Bible with, as one writer said, every turn of the archaeologist's shovel, another page of the scripture was affirmed. But let's not forget what I would call the Bible's miraculous preservation. There have been numerous attempts of history to destroy the early copies of scripture, ban the Bibles, burn the Bibles. And yet the Bible, the 66 canonical books of God's word, remain the most translated and distributed book in world history. There is no other book that comes close to comparing to the Bible. And the Bible is in nearly 2000 languages to be read today. Now, ultimately, Christians believe that the Bible is the word of God based on faith. But listen carefully, please.

The word faith, pistuo, or belief, P-I-S-T-E-A-U, it means trust. But see, everything you believe about history, you believe on the trust you place in the source relaying the facts. You believe that Lincoln spoke at Gettysburg on the battlefield?

I do. Do you believe that Washington was our first president? Of course. Do you believe that Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence? Marconi helped develop the radio? I mean, on and on we could go. The Wright brothers built the airplane, flew it at Kitty Hawk?

Sure. But the testimony of history is conveyed by sources. And ultimately, since neither you nor I were there, you have to exhibit faith or trust in the source. But faith rests on facts. And so regarding the Bible, the evidence of the history, the consistency, the testimony, the prophecies, the preservation of the manuscripts all point to a book that is of divine supernatural origin, indestructible, and life-changing today.

Now, one last miracle that is wonderful. God not only inspired his Word, he preserved his Word, but the Spirit of God will illuminate your mind that you may understand the Word. And that's 1 John 2.27. That's Psalm 119, verse 18. That's James 1, verse 5.

If you will say as you open the scripture, God, please reveal yourself to me, the Spirit of God will do that. Now we'll talk more, some more questions, answers on this edition of the Alex McFarland program. We've got a brief break. Please stay tuned. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this.

Hi, Alex McFarland here. You know, I was at a college speaking and I guess we ministers get too wordy. Somebody said, can you describe Christianity in only two words? And instantly this came to me and I said it, loving substitution.

And students raised their hands and they said, what does that mean? Loving substitution. Here's the thing, because Jesus Christ loves you, he was our substitute on Calvary's cross. The appropriate measure of God's wrath that you and I deserved was put onto Jesus. You don't have to die and suffer for your sins because he was the substitute who died for you. So if you call out to Christ, he will save you. He will forgive you.

I urge you to do that today because Jesus Christ has a plan for your life and it begins with you putting your faith in him. Thank you for listening. Thank you for your support. Learn more about this at AlexMcFarland.com.

He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to the Alex McFarland show. Welcome back to the program. Alex McFarland here. So honored you're listening.

We're talking about apologetics and the Bible, questions that people email in. A little bit of housekeeping before we continue. If you would like to email us, we'd love to hear from you. You can email info at AlexMcFarland.com. Also, if you would check out my tour schedule at AlexMcFarland.com. A lot of great things coming up. Wichita, Kansas, Barry, Alabama, Carthage, Mississippi, our seven youth camps this summer in beautiful places like Montana and upstate Hewitt, New Jersey.

That's in the Hudson River Valley. We'll have seven youth camps, some twelve hundred teenagers. Last summer, we had hundreds of decisions for Christ, young people enthusiastically committing to follow Christ. The website for our biblical worldview camps is EquipRetreat.org. I would encourage you to find the camp in your part of the country. The middle schoolers, the high schoolers, sign them up, and they will learn about God and country. We do all the fun camp stuff too.

Yes, I do the zip lines, drop off into the lake, and the hiking and all those wonderful things. But our staff, great people like Carl Kirby and Dave Glander, Frank Figueroa, we teach the Word of God and biblical worldview. So check that out. Then also, join us at the COVE, the Billy Graham Training Center in western North Carolina.

It is spectacular. The Spirit of God is in that place. Every summer that I go to the COVE, Will Graham asks me to teach a book of the Bible. We've done many books. Well, in the summer of 2025, I'm doing the book of Job. Part of that deals with the question, why do the righteous suffer?

Why is there pain and evil in the world? So we'll be doing the book of Job in July. Then in August, we'll be doing a deep dive on apologetics with our longtime friend and colleague, Jim Wallace, theCOVE.org. Then also, we've got our speaker series in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We're doing more and more ministry at the Greg Roles Theater in Myrtle Beach. Now listen to this, folks. It's America's number one destination beach.

It's a fantastic resort, amazing beaches and restaurants and golf. But of the 17.2 million people a year that go to Myrtle Beach, join us. Here are our speakers.

Now listen to this. Dinesh D'Souza, Riley Gaines, Dr. Gary Chapman, who wrote the five love languages, Eric Metaxas. We've got several other world-class big names that you'll instantly recognize that we're waiting on confirmation.

But check out AlexMcFarland.com. We want to meet you in person when we come to your city or when you come to Myrtle Beach. Then I want to say thank you for all who are supporting and donating. On the website, there's a button that says give and you are truly, with your prayers and financial investment, you're enabling us to evangelize the lost and equip the saved. We do regular articles. I just had an article on the front page of FoxNews.com. If we don't have your email, please email us info at AlexMcFarland.com and we'll keep you posted on all that God is doing through this ministry.

It's for his glory. Another question that comes in, someone writes and asks, has the Bible been changed since it was first written? It's a great question because the original manuscripts were from God, but do we know what the content of those manuscripts said? Most modern translations include a lot of footnotes that will mention variations in some manuscripts and some skeptics or critics that really perhaps have not done their homework. They'll claim that the Bible contains errors because of an alleged difference in a particular copy of the scriptures. But has the Bible been changed? And the answer is no. Now of the thousands and thousands of New Testament manuscripts and the hundreds of copies of Old Testament manuscripts, there are occasional variants.

Now what does this mean? If you've got dozens of manuscripts that say one thing and another manuscript where a word is misspelled or a word is left out, you can know. Scholars know what the original said because they compare all the manuscripts. The text of the scriptures is essentially the same today as when it was first written. Now Dallas Seminary scholar Dr. Daniel Wallace is one of the top experts on the early manuscripts of the New Testament. In fact, I had an atheist tell me that Dan Wallace was the greatest New Testament scholar in the world. And when asked about changes in the Bible, Dr. Wallace confidently said that all the words of the Bible are in the text that we have today or in the footnotes. There are no missing books somewhere to be discovered, and there are no verses that are lost or corrupted. In spite of what a Muslim said to me, I was sharing the gospel with a Muslim. And because he had been taught by the imams, this Muslim young man that I was sharing Christ with, he said the New Testament was corrupted, changed, altered. I said, okay, the very same manuscripts that are from the first century, and they were the same manuscripts that were extant during the time of Muhammad.

We have those today. We have what's called the manuscript lineage. Sometimes scholars use the term manuscript attestation. So if you're going to tell me that the Bible has been changed, here's my question. What are the changes and when were they inserted? And of course, there's no answer because the Bible has not been changed. Now, about those footnotes in your Bible, let's talk a little bit about some of the textual practices of the passages being discussed. Okay, imagine you had 10 copies of a book, and nine of them were 100% the same. And there's a variant in that 10th one. Well, what this illustrates is that variant, that one being inaccurate, the other nine being accurate. As scholars look at these things, they consider the copies. For example, even if nine of 10 readings agree against one that does not, they look at the context of that single variant. Was the unique reading based on a copy of the Bible that was closer to the time of the original text in question? Or is there historical evidence to indicate that that one variant should be given more attention? So they determine a lot of factors. And then finally, and we'll have to close with this thought, scholars compare Scripture with Scripture.

And you and I can do the same. That's why we don't build some aberrant doctrine on one verse. The Bible talks about being careful about, I love how the King James renders this, doubtful disputations.

What do we know? Well, for 2000 years Christendom has affirmed the existence of the biblical God, the triune God, the incarnation that Jesus proved he was the promised Messiah crucified at Passover. He suffered the punishment necessary to atone for our sins, rose from the dead, validating who he was and what he taught. And Jesus said in John 539, search the scriptures for they testify of me. We'll have to pick this up again another day, but you can trust your Bible. The evidence is compelling that God gave the words, God preserved the words.

If you will allow, the Spirit will illuminate your mind that you can understand and believe the words. In the Bible, you have the revelation from God and that content says that he loves you. Christ died for you. Jesus is the Messiah, worthy of your belief, total loyalty and following him with all you've got for all of your life. Jesus is the Son of God.

And we learn this through the Bible, the Word of God. 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 the truth. Learn more and donate securely online at alexmcfarland.com. You may also reach us by calling 1-877-YES-GOD1. That's 1-877-YES-GOD1. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-14 02:17:31 / 2025-01-14 02:27:55 / 10

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