Schedule

The Apostle Jude describes the necessity of contending for the faith once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). This session will examine the New Testament’s call to contend for the faith and explain why threats inside and outside the church make it necessary for us to know and contend for the Christian faith.

Through the practice of Christian apologetics, believers work to fulfill Peter’s mandate that we always be ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us (1 Peter 3:15). This session will define apologetics and look at some of the most pressing issues Christian apologists face today from the social sciences and other areas.

This session will emphasize the necessity of preaching and defending the truth when addressing both believers and unbelievers.

This session will focus on the involvement of the local church in apologetics, particularly the love Christians have for one another as the chief apologetic for the Christian faith (John 13:35).

In today’s world, Christians must answer the claims of atheists, agnostics, and those who claim that there are many ways to God. This session will look to Paul’s encounter on Mars Hill from Acts 17 as a model for how we are to answer objections to the Christian faith.

Our postmodern culture strives to convince us that there is no such thing as objective truth and that no religious truth claim is better than any other. This session will examine the issues of truth in our society, demonstrating the necessity and existence of objective truth as foundational to the Christian message and all of life.

The Holy Spirit can use apologetics to break down barriers to the gospel; however, people are finally converted to Christ only through the power of the Word of God. This session will remind us that the power of God is found in His Word and that He saves people through the preaching of the gospel that is foolishness to the world but the wisdom of God unto salvation (1 Cor. 1:20–25).

Our origin as creatures made in God’s image is the only thing that can give our lives meaning and serve as a basis for ethical living (Gen. 1:26–28). This session will look at the importance of understanding our origin as image bearers of our divine Creator so that we can understand the meaning of life, what morality entails, and our final destiny.

This session will consider what we can learn from the early church’s use of apologetics in defending the faith in a culture not unlike our own.

This session will consider how we can apply the discipline of apologetics to our everyday lives.

That God Himself came to earth in the flesh has implications for how we do apologetics. This session will consider several of these implications and also consider how we can defend the incarnation of the Son of God against attacks from those who are outside the Christian faith.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation, and we should seek to present it in our apologetic encounters (Rom. 1:16–17). This session will provide an outline of the basic gospel message and remind attendees that our goal in apologetics is not to display our own intellectual acumen but to proclaim the gospel clearly and boldly.