UAC #2

In this episode of Unapologetically Christian, Adam Roar and Chase Brooks discuss apologetics. They define apologetics as the attempt to remove obstacles and doubts to Christianity and offer reasons for believing in it. They talk about the importance of studying apologetics to help reaffirm people's doubts and offer solutions. They also discuss the three prophets of the human soul: reason, conscience, and imagination, which are satisfied by Christ. They then delve into the three themes of apologetics: theological, academic, and missional. They emphasize the need to have knowledge and understanding of theology, engage in intellectual discussions, and build relationships with others in order to share the gospel effectively. Welcome back to the second episode of Unapologetically Christian. My name is Adam Roar again and this is Chase Brooks. Yes it is. This is our very, this is our very second episode and we're having fun with this. We're talking about apologetics, if you haven't seen our introduction video, kind of what apologetics means. Today we're going to kind of give you the invitation to apologetics and kind of tell you the definition, kind of tell you why it matters, and kind of going through that in this episode. But Chase, what do you think of apologetics so far? So far it's super interesting. I know coming in it was like, I thought it was just as simple as defending the Christian faith, but now looking at it, it's a lot more than that. It's a lot more complex and there's a lot more that goes into it and hopefully we can dive into that today and let the viewers know what we've learned so far in our first week. Yeah, I think so too. So for our very first assignment given to us by Pastor Dave, the pastor of Apples Chapel, we read the first two chapters of Stand Firm. That is by Paul Goud, Travis Dickinson, and R. Keith Lofton. And we've read the first two chapters and kind of like what Chase said, I did not understand how complex, I mean I even took a course of apologetics in college, and just reading the first two chapters of this book, it seems like I'm way over my head. Like I'm not, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but it's kind of hard for me to understand. But we're gonna try to, we're gonna try to explain a little bit of it for you listening. So today we're just going to go through the first two chapters of Stand Firm, and the first thing that we really learn about in our book is the definition of apologetics. So Chase, do you want to tell them kind of what is apologetics? Yeah, so in the book Stand Firm, they define apologetics as an attempt to remove obstacles or doubts to, as well as offer positive reasons for believing that Christianity is true and satisfying. So basically it's like just countering any doubts, or like I said, obstacles that come when it comes to trying to accept Christianity and the truths of Christianity. Yeah, and I think, I think the importance of why we need to learn this, I mean you see this almost every day. On the first episode we talked about a guy named Cliff, who goes around the college campuses with his son Stuart, and they basically, they open the floor up and let people ask questions, and in that they're basically offering solutions, and they're, they're helping reaffirm people and their doubts on Christianity, because I feel like a lot of people in this world, they have their doubts. They don't, they don't want to believe in something that they can't see. They don't want to, they don't want to give their life away, and that's kind of what we're going to go into a little bit later with an example that was from the book, but I think apologetics is really important, and I think that's, that's a good point to study it, and kind of learn it, so we can go out and do the same thing. So we have the definition of apologetics, and we're kind of going to go into the book more, talk to y'all about some things that we've been learning. The first thing that we have on the agenda is we're talking about the reason, the conscious, conscience, and imagination of apologetics. Yeah, so when we're talking about the doubts or obstacles when it comes to apologetics, and the doubts that may arise when it's coming to the Christian faith, this is when we get into what Peter Kreeft calls the three prophets of the human soul, which is reason, which longs for truth, the conscience, which longs for goodness, and the imagination, which longs for beauty, and all of these things are fully satisfied in Christ. So any doubts that may arise in your mind, or because of reason, because of your conscience, because of your imagination, at the end of the day, Christ has already satisfied all of those doubts, and it's our job as Christians to point to the answers to to defeat those any doubts or obstacles. Right, and I think that's something like we talked about. We had a meeting with Pastor Dave yesterday, and we kind of went through these three, reason, conscience, and imagination, and we were going through some examples, and you could almost, each example you could go through, and you could kind of put it in its own category. Some of them have multiple examples that we discovered, but once you're in that conversation, maybe you're talking to somebody that brings up a point, once you can get it into one of those categories, then you can base your answers on what they're doubting. And like Jay said, in all of these things, all of the categories are fully and satisfied by Jesus alone, and I think we have a messed up idea of that in this world, where we focus too much on our doubts, and we're not willing to accept Jesus into our heart. So those are the reasons, and the conscience, and imagination. We go next into theological, academic, and missional. It's kind of like a pyramid, not a pyramid scheme, but it's a pyramid, and Jay, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so it's kind of like a triangle, and it's all connecting. They're all the three themes of apologetics. First is the theological issues, which is the book describes as the nature and scope of common grace, the nature of man, the effects of sin, and the nature of general revelation. So this is kind of like just basic theology, I mean that's what theological means, and it just informs our understanding and practice of apologetics. So it's kind of like the background, that's what I wrote in my book, the background or the reason. This is the first theme of apologetics. We got to know what we're talking about, right, and it's something we'll talk about later. We're going to talk about the concept of knowledge. This involves that piece of knowledge, as we have to know the background, and the reason, and what we're talking about when it comes to apologetics. Right, I agree with that a lot, because it's, like we said at the very beginning, that's a lot more complex than you would think. Like the guy we're talking about, Cliff, he does not just not know anything, for instance. Like he doesn't know, he knows a lot. He knows a lot about the Bible, he knows like the theology behind it, he knows a lot of knowledge about the Bible, and that way he can go out and do what we're kind of talking about. So, and at all of these points, everything does point to God, in all of these three points, not just the theological point, all of them. So, and I think that's the point we wanted to get across. Did you have anything else? That's all for the theological one. Right. I mean the academic, really that's when you start to get into the mind and intellectual, and this is really what people think about when you think about apologetics, because whenever you have those defeater beliefs, is what we'd like to call them, or those doubts, it's really what comes from the mind, and that's where this academic theme of apologetics comes in. So, the book includes the staples of arguments for God's existence, discussions of the problem of evil and hell, and the resurrection of Christ. So, it could just begin as like a brief comment, but it definitely can lead into a more deeper conversation with the academic piece, and I highlighted this in my book. Since God is the creator of all distinct reality, it follows that all truths discovered, all knowledge gained, in every academic discipline somehow connects back to God and illuminates his divinity, basically. So, everything points back to God, and that's the academic theme of apologetics. Okay, so that brings up our third point, and that is our missional. So, this is basically talking about like, this is our mission as Christians. We're supposed to kind of take these two points together, and we're supposed to go out and do what the Bible is telling us to do. With those missional, our goal as Christians, I think in my own life, if I've ever tried to reach out to somebody, and we're going to talk about this next, but there's this thing called a gunslinger approach, and then I think us as Christians, I don't think that is the way to go, and we're going to explain that in a minute, but I think our goal as Christians is one of the most important things, or one of the most, I don't know what word I'm looking for. Well, let me think it through. Most important? Most vital? The best way, the best way I found is, you almost want to befriend somebody first. You want to, you want to be their friend. You don't want to just approach them just for the sake of that, because if that's your only reason to get, or if that's your only reason, then they're going to turn you off. They're not going to want to talk to you, because you're just coming up to them saying that they're destined for hell, and then they're going to turn you off. They're not going to want you to talk to them anymore, but I think once you build those bridges, and you become their friend, and you talk to them, and one thing Dave has always said, a good starting point, once you've gotten to know them a little bit, is just saying, hey, do you know what I, what I mean when I say the gospel? That could be a good opener. You could say that. Do you know what I mean when I say the gospel? And then you can kind of see what they say from there on, kind of like what we said before, see what they say, and then you can base your answers off of their answer. So I think that is kind of our our missional goal as Christians, is to make those connections, build those bridges, and that is a way that we can find the opportunity to talk to them about Jesus. Yeah, I think like when you're building those bridges, it's important to know like where that other person comes from, their culture, their background, and just help build those bridges like we're talking about, and build those relationships when it comes to our missional theme and apologetics. Now I kind of want to talk to y'all about the gunslinger approach. So everything I'm about to say, do not do this, please, in the world. The gunslinger approach, you may have had this happen in your life. You have somebody kind of just, just for, to slander you and basically say like you're destined for hell, and then I don't know if I've ever been, I guess you could say gunslinged. I've never been gunslinged before. Maybe I have, I just don't remember. But have you ever been gunslinged, Jace? I don't think I've ever really been gunslinged. I mean, I've had people come up to me and tell me that I'm in love. They're telling me that I'm going down the wrong path, and that I need to like find my identity in Christ, because even in high school I, I mean, I had an identity problem. I found my identity in all types of things like sports and being funny or whatever, and I'm not even that funny. So that was a problem. But no, you have these people, and I've, I've been around the types of Christians that kind of just go up to you and tell you, and it's never a good, it's never a good strategy, I don't think, to do that. And as Christians, we do not want to do that, because like I said earlier, like they're just gonna, that is gonna turn them off of the gospel, and that may be the only time that they get to see God's love is through you. Dave talks about that a lot in his Sunday sermons. People at work, people at school, that might be the only time that they see Jesus, and that's through you. So we have a lot of responsibility as Christians. I don't want to put that pressure on you, but I think we have a lot of responsibility as Christians to live out like Jesus did. So I think that's an important truth to kind of throw in there for you. Yeah, but it says right here, I highlighted this part, we are to engage unbelievers in the way we want to be engaged if we were in their shoes, and that is with gentleness and respect. And so that's something that we want to learn. I know there have been instances in my own life where I want to use the gunslinger approach. Like I want to go to that person and tell them they're being an idiot and they need to turn back to God, but that's not gonna work. I mean people, they want to be treated with gentleness just like I do. So I think that's an important thing to know. Yeah, I think along with the gunslinging like approach, the opposite of that, what we're supposed to do with apologetics and evangelism or just sharing the gospel in general, is the book says we're supposed to treat it with an attitude of reverence or holy fear toward Christ. So it shouldn't be out of our own pride. We're not the ones doing the saving, right? It's God. God is the one doing the saving. It's our job to just present the information, not in a gunslinging approach where we're just throwing everything at them, but it kind of goes back to what we talked about, building that relationship so that you can present the gospel with that attitude of reverence or holy fear toward Christ and not out of your own pride. Right, I really like that. I just thought of a quote from what Jace just said. It was Gigi, Gigi Graham, Billy Graham's daughter. I went to a men's retreat and she was there and she gave this quote and it was pretty cool. She said, it was our job to love, it was the Holy Spirit's job to convict, and it was God's job to judge. And I think that's a good quote to base our life on. And we won't dive into this much, but we could go into love and grace and talk about people sinning and you're just loving them, but you have to find that line of love and grace. We won't dive into that very much. But our next part we kind of want to talk about is why apologetics matter. Why do they matter? What is the point of them? Why are we to do them, like, why are we to do them apologetics? Why are we to have apologetics in our life, I guess? Yeah, so the book, it gives many, I think it's three main reasons why apologetics matter. The first one being apologetics addresses the ideas and values embraced by a culture that shapes its receptivity to the gospel. And this is where you get those defeater beliefs. And as you can see today, our world, our culture is constantly changing, and oftentimes shifting away from Christianity, shifting away from the gospel. And this is why apologetics matters today, because our culture is changing. We have to find a way to counter that change, counter those those defeater beliefs that are raising. Adam, do you want to talk about the Wild West? Yeah, let's talk about the Wild West for a minute. Yeah, I think when we talk about culture, it's like, it's very important when, like what Jay said, we have to realize that it's always changing. If you're like me, and you grew up in a very Christian home, and you went to church every Sunday, and you grew up in this environment, I even went to a Christian school, you grew up in this environment where you almost had no doubt that everyone that you're around is a Christian. So what we need to do, and as adults, we move around, I go to different environments. I worked at Colston, I worked at Hershey's, I work at all these different places. Now I'm a youth pastor, where I hope all of our staff is are Christian. But you have to realize that everyone you come in contact to is not a Christian. They don't all believe in Christianity. I think the belief that some people have is everyone in the West believes in Christianity. And I think as a person, I need to kind of avoid those Western mindsets, and kind of know that not everyone that I'm around is a Christian. And I need to be available to God, and be able to share the gospel with them if that door opens. Or maybe even try to get a door open so that I can talk to them about the gospel. So I think that's an important note to put in there. If not everyone around you is a Christian, you may think that they are, but they may not be. So we need to avoid those Western mindsets. And then that leads into our second point under the category, Why Does Apologetics Matter? And that is, apologetics contributes to our spiritual formation unto Christ. And then I highlighted right under it, knowing both what you believe and why you believe it helps you grow into Christ-likeness. You want to talk about that at all, Jason? Yeah, so our spiritual formation, it's really more of a deeper understanding, right? So apologetics contributes to that deeper understanding, and how we form to become more like Christ. Because ultimately, that's our goal at the end of the day, is to become more like Christ every day. And I highlighted right after, it mentioned Romans 12 to where it talks about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. That's a very popular verse a lot of people's favorite verses. But what you believe about God, the world, and the self-will, in a large part, determines the course of your life and the shape of your soul. So whatever you think, however your mind works, is going to control how you live your life. So that's why when it talks about in Romans, transform by the renewing of your mind. If you renew your mind with God's Word, with the gospel, that's when you'll be able to see the effects in your life and by the way you're living. And I think that's really what is important when it comes to spiritual formation, when it comes to apologetics. Yeah, I think so. I think that is a good reason why apologetics does matter. It says right here, apologetics can help you think more deeply about the content of your mental life in order to root out error, strengthen beliefs, and bring a deeper appreciation of the lure and enchantment of Jesus and the gospel. And I think that is a great wrap-up for that second point. That's why apologetics matter. We just went over a message in youth group about this. Everything in your mind almost comes out into your life. So it all starts in the head. You have some of the biggest mental, like battle, one of life's biggest battlefields is in your head. So if you get your mind right and you let God transform your mind, it's going to renew your life. And then that brings us to our final point. It's apologetics helps win unbelievers to Christ. I think this is the one when people think about apologetics. It's really kind of a form of evangelism and what is brought to mind when you think about defending the faith, especially when you look at Cliff on TikTok going to all these college campuses just to try to answer any questions that non-believers may have. And that's what I wrote in my book. It's a form of evangelism. Being able to defend the faith and being knowledgeable of the gospel when it comes to apologetics is going to ultimately help win non-believers over to Christ. Right. And then he gives us a little bit of his background, the altar, and how his friend invited him to church. And how if Christianity was true, then I should give my life to it. So we kind of want to read a example of that in our book. And what was it called? The Believer Doubts? What is it called? The Doubts? Guys, I'm sorry. Yeah, there was an example of that at the end of chapter one about St. Augustine. And I did not know this about him. I didn't know like kind of his story, but he kind of goes through his life and how he was. He had found out about Jesus, but he was hesitant. He didn't know if he wanted to give his life over to that. And he quotes right here. He said, I had discovered the good pearl and to buy it, I had to sell all that I had and I hesitated. But why? Why did why did he hesitate? And he goes on to say that he had he was basically addicted to the world. He he loved the things of the world and he did not want to give those up for a guy named Jesus. And I think in our world today, we we have a lot of those people that they're saying, OK, OK, well, I can't I can't do the things that I love the most because I follow Jesus. So I'm not going to follow him. And then it kind of goes down to I think it's a really cool. Yeah, here here we go. Really cool story how he was telling that he was he loved the world and he was afraid. And then he heard this voice say, I'm not going to try to read and what is it? Toleleje. It means pick up and read. And he looked down and he saw a Bible on the ledge next to him and he picked it up and he opened it and read this from Romans 13, 13 and 14. Not in riots and drunken parties, not in eroticism and in deciment. Indecency. Indecency. Sorry, I can't read. Not in strife and rivalry, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh and its lust. And right there, he bent down his knee and he gave his life to God. And then we have four lessons from his story that we're kind of going to go through really quick and then we're going to go off to chapter two. But the first one is our highest good and greatest need is Christ. And I wrote right beside that. The world tells us the exact opposite. The world tells us that you can find all of your needs in this. You can find all of your needs in sex. You can find all of your needs in drugs. You can find all of your needs in the world and those things are going to satisfy you. But the thing is, if you've ever had someone in your family, if you've ever known an alcoholic, what are they always looking for? They're looking for the next drink. They're looking for the next high. They're looking for whatever is going to satisfy them in that moment. And the thing is, it's not. It's not ever going to fully satisfy you. And I think that's one of the best lessons that he wrote in here all we need is Christ. You're never going to fill that hole that only Christ can fill with things of the world. And J.C., I'm getting emotional. I think for that point, a quote I like to use is oftentimes you hear people talking about they feel like they're missing a piece or they're not. They're missing a piece of their life. And I think I use this in my sermon that I did last year. But if you find God's peace, as in P-E-A-C-E, then you'll feel your missing piece as in P-I-E-C-E. That's pretty good. And so once you find God's peace, like Adam was saying, it's going to just fulfill everything that you thought you didn't have. Whatever the drinks, whatever the drugs couldn't get you to, God can get you to. He can fill up. He can fill that missing piece for you. Yeah. So I think that is one of the most important things in his four that I saw. Did you want to mention any of the other ones? I think the last one's kind of important. Talking about that not just the truth of Christianity is enough. You have to have more than just the basic knowledge of that. And when we talk about more, we're talking about the relationship that you need to have with Jesus. I think this is a quote we talked about when we had our discussion with Dave, is there are only two kinds of people. This comes from C.S. Lewis. There are only two kinds of people in the end, those who say to God, thy will be done, and those to whom God says in the end, thy will be done. I kind of got confused of this quote, but the way Dave explained it is that the people that don't want God in their life, God grants them that wish when it comes judgment day. He will say to them, you can have your will and you can spend eternity in hell, because ultimately hell is eternity away from God. That's what hell means. It's not meant to be a burning place of fire. It's just separate from God is what hell truly is. Yeah, eternally separated from God. And I think that's important to know, because I mean, once we get to that gate, and if we're the ones saying, thy will be done, we're telling God, like this is what we want. We want to give our life to you. But then you have the opposition where people are saying, no, I don't want to do that. And then he says to them, thy will be done. It was kind of confusing. I didn't know what it meant either. But Dave squared that away for us. So now we are going off to chapter two, and that is titled Truth, Knowledge, and Faith. Yeah, truth, knowledge, and faith. I think first we could talk about truth. Yeah, let's go ahead and talk about truth. There's a lot of pages on truth. The word true is used a lot. It's pretty confusing. Yeah, if you come back to us, and you let us know how many times in this chapter it says truth or true, we will Venmo you $10. Okay, let us know. Yep. So truth is what I got out of what I really got out of it was that truth is like, basically looked at as an atom, not like Adam sitting next to me, right? Like an atom, A-T-O-M. It's like the basic building block of life in general is the basic point is the foundational belief is, well, I would define truth like it says in the book that basic or the notion of truth is so basic that it's well understood by virtually everyone. Yeah, it would be kind of the definition of truth, even kids. I mean, it gives an example of little Johnny, where there were some missing cookies from the cookie jar. And Johnny had, he had chocolate smeared on his cheek. And then his mom said to him, hey, Johnny, did you eat these cookies? Is that true? And then it seems like he perfectly understood what the truth was. And it goes a lot. It goes very deep into truth. I'm actually going to read you a quote from Aristotle. Embrace yourself. This might be a doozy. And I want you to see if you can understand this. But we eventually did. To say of what is, that is not. I'm going to slow it down. To say of what that. I slowed it down and I messed it up. To say of what is, that it is not, or of what is, not that it is, is false. While to say of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that is not, is true. Okay, so basically saying, if it's true, then it's true. If it's false, then it's false. Okay, so I don't know why he had to say that. He just wanted to sound smart, I think. I don't know. I don't know Aristotle's background. But that was a doozy. Yeah, so they say truth a lot. But it seems like everyone in this world has a different definition of truth. Like we see, we see every, I mean everybody has a different definition of truth. So what is truth? What is truth, Chase? You're going to answer that. This is where you can kind of get into, the book talks about propositional, like propositions, and which talks about truth bearer and truth maker. So kind of two important points. The propositional content, or simply put, the proposition, it's always the descriptive part of your claim. And that this is going to be the part of your claim that is either true or false. So that's why this is, the proposition is called the truth bearer. And when it comes to making truth claims. And then if you look at the truth maker, which would be the fact of reality. So that would be what actually takes place, is the truth maker determines whether or not your proposition is true or false. Right. So for example, God exists, true? And the answer would be the fact of God existing. The things around us that we see that God is real. And he really does exist. And I think we can get confused on that. But I think it's just important for us to know what God says is the truth. And really kind of listen to what he says, because ultimately he is the creator of this universe. And we abide by him. And we, we understand his truth. And I think a lot of people in this world are going to tell you otherwise, but we have to stick to that truth. Do you want to go into more knowledge or do you want to stay in truth for a little bit more? Uh, I'll just mention the correspondence theory of truth. This is kind of what we're talking about. It's really just the, I guess the academic term for this proposition. And, uh, we use big words around here. We're smart. This is called the correspondence relation. Definitely not just reading it straight out of the book, but that's, that's really what we're talking about when it comes to the proposition relating to reality. And I think the last thing that we can mention with truth is you oftentimes you hear people say, like you were talking about, well, my truth is different than your truth, which that's really not the case because when it comes to the end of the day, there's only one absolute truth, whether or not we know that truth on any different subject, that doesn't matter. We may not even know the truth, but there is one singular truth. I can't have my truth and you can't have your truth. That just doesn't make sense. Right. Then what is the truth? Yeah, exactly. I think that's a good place to wrap up though. Yeah. I think that's enough. The truth. Um, I'm just thinking through when you were talking like different arguments I've heard in my life of people arguing over truth, not even about Jesus. They're just, it's just dumb stuff. Like we used to talk about, um, are there more doors or wheels in the world? And we would go through that debate for like two hours at lunch. It's just so dumb. Like what is the truth? Anyway, we're going to move on the knowledge, knowledge. Um, so yeah, I think before we get into knowledge, I think it's important to say that, uh, maybe I've already mentioned this, but, or maybe I just mentioned it beforehand, but it's not, we're going to get into faith in a minute. But I think as we think of Christianity, um, I think as really as unbelievers think of Christianity, we, they think it's all just faith base and, uh, and we're going to mention some quotes later about how people have said that faith is just a cop out and you don't really, you don't really know anything, but I think you have to be very knowledgeable in order to, um, do apologetics. So we're going to talk a little bit about knowledge and apologetics right now. So knowledge can basically, knowledge requires both truth and belief. There's really three ingredients when it comes to breaking down knowledge. So the way the book puts it is a person must believe P as P is like just an example. Yeah. A person must believe. So that's the belief. The proposition P must be true. So that's the truth. And then the third ingredient is the person must have good reasons for believing P. So when you're trying to gain knowledge or we're looking at knowledge, you have to have good reasons to have that belief, which you would ultimately would be true if you have true knowledge of it. It's kind of confusing. So you must believe P. The proposition of P has to be true and you have to have good reasons for believing P. Then you have knowledge. Yeah. Then you have knowledge. And I think that's kind of what apologetics is. We believe in Jesus. The proposition of Jesus has to be true and the person must have good reasons for believing in Jesus. I think we can fill that in for almost anything that we believe in. Yeah, definitely. And then we have knowledge about that thing. And then when we look at good reasons, this is where you get into evidence. You often talk, uh, oftentimes talk about, uh, show me evidence of God. I know Cliff, he's had guy, he had, uh, he'd had, he's had guys, um, argue and debate him and be like, show me the proof that God exists. And Cliff, of course, never gets a yes or no answer. He can't show you the proof, but he can show you the evidence that God exists. And, uh, we were talking about this with Dave. Evidence can come from experiences. And this is where you get into like testimonies where those become powerful. Um, yeah, he gave an example of Francis Chan. Yeah. Those can be used as evidence when it comes to apologetics, evangelism, whatever it may be. Yeah. I did want to mention that. That's what I was thinking of. Friends, Chan. I kind of want to share that story just really quickly, quickly, really quickly. Um, so Francis Chan, I don't remember where he's at, but he's in California, California. And so he gets into this car with a total stranger. He believes in a different God and they kind of start talking. And then Francis Chan says, does your God answer your prayers? And the guy says, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. He definitely answers my prayer. I prayed him all the time. And then Francis Chan went into how he prays to God. And this is what he did. And then I prayed for this and this is what God did. And he's kind of just talking to, I guess, the front seat in front of him. And he looks over after he gets done telling this guy and he looks up and the guy is just weeping. And he says, my God does not, he, I was lying. He doesn't actually answer my prayers. It's kind of more just, I do it. And that's just, that's really cool. And that's a good example of how personal testimony can be, um, it can be convicting. It can really prove the evidence of God that he really exists. And I want to challenge you. I started doing this. I want you to write down your prayers. I want you to, uh, whenever you're praying, I want you to write down specific prayers that whatever is going through in your life. And I want you to see how God is answering those. And I know if you're me, you forget a lot of stuff. So I write it down, but just in doing that can show you how God is moving through your life and how he's answering those prayers. And I think that's, that's really great evidence of God existing. And it gives a couple of examples and, uh, in the book, but did you have anything else to say about evidence? I just think like the, definitely the personal testimony and experiences are important, but later on and probably later episodes, we'll talk about actual evidence. We're about to start a book called the reason for God by Timothy Keller. And, um, there's going to be different clues of God and evidence that God exists. So we'll present those at a later episode that'll actually give you some, I guess you could say ammo, but that's probably bad about the gun slinging approach. Give you some knowledge when it comes to presenting apologetics. I think one of the craziest things Cliff says, and it's really funny to watch people's reaction. He's like, give me evidence that God really exists or Jesus really existed on this world. And he's like, okay, give me some evidence that George Washington actually walked on this world. And I was like, oh wow. Okay. And I've heard some arguments against that, but I mean, that's pretty, that's pretty good. Um, but yeah, do you want to go more towards faith now? Our last, uh, topic of the podcast? Yeah. Let's go into faith. Faith is, uh, often it's pretty heated. Yeah. Yeah. Cause especially with today's non-believer, um, they'll, if you ask them what faith is, they'll just be like, it's a belief without evidence or it's like Adam was saying earlier, it's the greatest cop-out, the great excuse to invade, to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. That was from Richard Dawkins, by the way. Um, Peter, what's that guy's last name? Peter Boghossian. And so he said, faith is pretending to know things that you don't know and belief without evidence. So yeah, a lot, a lot of people have stuff to say about faith and they, a lot of, a lot of hate gets thrown on faith. Um, I think faith is probably one of the hardest things about Christianity. I would say that Christianity probably focuses on faith the most out of everything. Yeah. And it's one of the hardest things to have. Um, I think faith is to kind of counter those quotes and like the non-believer idea. Yeah. It can't be a belief without evidence because faith itself is not a belief. Faith is a state of trust, right? So faith is not really believing, but the book, um, does it as a venture trust, which is, uh, you have evidence, like we were talking about, there's reasons for you to have that faith. And, um, it's really, it's more of a state of trust than it is a belief. So it can't be a belief without evidence because it's not a belief in the first place. Right. Exactly. I really liked that. Um, is there anything else you want to talk about faith? Oh, everyone has faith that part. Oh, everyone does have faith. Even, even non-believers, like if they're making fun of a Christian faith and they're like, you have faith in something that you can't even see. Well, in reality, every single person has faith in something, whether it's the chair I'm sitting in right now that I have faith that it's going to hold me when I sit down. Right. Or if it's a non, if it's an atheist, uh, they have faith that there's no God out there. Every person has faith in something, whether you know it or not. Right. It's just handled differently when it comes to Christianity, because we're talking about Jesus. Yeah. And I think, uh, when we talk about faith and evidence, it's, I heard this pretty cool example of the wind. We, we have faith that the wind exists. You can't see it. Can you, but if the tree is blowing outside, what does that because it's because of the wind, we have evidence that the wind actually exists. So with God, we have faith that he exists in through the evidence of our life, just being alive or evidence of the things that he's done in our life. That is a reason to have faith in him. So I think that's a pretty good example of, uh, of God existing and, um, just having faith in something that you can't see. I think we can wrap up talking about faith and reason and how, uh, some people say they're, they don't really go together, but in order to have true faith, you're going to have to have some sort of reason. There's always going to be a reason for your faith. Um, I highlighted, they have faith in Christ precisely because they have become convinced by the preaching of the gospel, the testimony of the spirit, the richest richness of scripture, a work the Lord has done in their own lives, entrance of prayer, the evidence seen in the world, testimony from others, and so on. There's so many reasons, like those are reasons right there, right? That contribute to faith. So the people that say that faith and reason stand in tension, that that view is called fideism. I think that's how you say that. Sure. Fideism. That is not, that's not true because there's always a reason for faith, right? You're not just going to have a, it's not a blind faith. Yeah. I think I've heard that word before blind faith. Um, but I don't have that. I don't have blind faith. Blind faith is not faith. There's always a reason for faith. That's basically right. Yeah. I think that's really good. Um, to wrap up, yeah, that is our, uh, that is the first two chapters of Stand Firm. It's kind of cliff notes. Um, if you're like me, you can take the next two hours and read them. Now, that's another thing I want to talk to y'all about. Dave is teaching us how to speed read and it is so fun. Like I hate reading, that's the crazy part, but now I kind of have like an objective, like I want to get better at it, you know, and speed reading is crazy. It's, it's super fun. We're just, I don't know why I'm talking about this, but we're just going to kind of talk to y'all. If you want to listen, I know we're 43 minutes in. You've made it this far. If you've made it this far. You might as well stick around. Thank you. But, uh, Jace, how you liking your internship so far? So far, so good. It's pretty, I mean, me and Adam played ping pong the other day. We did. It's a hard day at work. Had to make some basketball goals yesterday. He's here on Wednesday and he's not even... Overtime right now. Right. Yeah. You get free lunch. Somebody help me. We're working him to death. It's awesome. I'm excited for the study. Uh, I apologize. Already learning a lot. Learning how to speed read. I feel like I'm so much more productive with Jace here. Like I feel like if he were here all the time, I would get so much done. But, uh, to wrap up, if you want to join us next week, we're going to be studying post-modernism. I don't think we're going to, well, I'm going to keep reading in the book, but we're going to dive into a study of post-modernism as, uh, as we are starting our summer series after, um, I think it's June 9th. Um, we're going to be talking about post-modernism at nine o'clock and 1030 at Apple's Chapel. If you want to join us, or if you just want to listen to our podcast, that would be lovely as well. So thank you all for listening. And Jace, anything last to say? No. Count how many times the word true or truth is in. Let us know. $10 coming your way. $10 on the way in the mail. All right. Thank you for joining us on Unapologetically Christian. I'm Adam Rohrer and this is Jace Brooks, and we are saying good night. Peace out.