Well in that, let's pray and get started. Holy Father God, we thank you for this opportunity of giving us time to fellowship, to learn, to grow, to study together this evening, Lord. We pray that this session may be fruitful, glorifying, honoring to you, Lord. We pray that you impress upon our hearts, not only the need for evangelism, but the the need for biblical apologetics. Lord, we want to use and treat your word rightly and hold your word in honor. And we thank you for the great privilege to read and know your word. And we ask that you sanctify us, grow us, and lead us on this journey as we grow together as a group. In Jesus Christ's name, amen. So what I've made was a scripture outline for really memorization purposes. Some of you guys know scripture by heart already, so the reason, purpose for this outline is if the chapter we're gonna be going over is something you've already got down already, then you can go ahead and move forward to the next one. The scriptures in bold are the ones that are recommended to memorize. The ones in italic are just for review. You can memorize them if you want to, but I don't want to overburden you guys with too much, because as much as it's nice to hear that you can memorize the entire Bible, the likelihood of that happening is very slim. But some of these are big, bold verses. Chapter 15, for example. The entire chapter of Genesis 1. And I can testify that it is possible to memorize that entire chapter. And the reason why I think it's important to memorize these is, number one, these are some basic core things of the faith, to be able to know what the seven days of creation are, to know at the bottom of your sheet your additional scriptures for memorization, Exodus 20, what the law of the Ten Commandments is. basic core things of Christianity. So I think it's important for every man of God that takes his faith seriously to have these things hidden in his heart. But again, this is not a group where we're going to be looking down on you and hammering you to memorize scripture. It's recommended, and in his word, he does say it is wise, so. And Pastor Jeff says it every Sunday. We should be reading the word daily and hiding it in our hearts. So what does hiding it in our hearts mean if it's not memorizing scripture? So there you have that to look at, mull over. Come on, brother. The paper's up front for you. Paper's up front. Good evening. I think I said good morning to you, Andrew. So before we actually get started, I just want to give like a, I guess a brief testimony for who I am and why I'm here. For those of you guys who don't really know me, I was brought up in a religious home. As a young child, I attended my mom's and my mother's Baptist church. And after two to three years of that, my father was jealous of our religious activity and attendance and got involved by taking my mother and I out of the Baptist church and into his religious background, which was the Roman Catholic church. As I grew in age, I became more apathetic to religion, though having knowledge of the Bible and the gospel. During my last years in high school, I was sunk deep in depression and made a few attempts into suicide. By God's grace, I never followed through. I realized if I didn't leave home shortly after graduating high school, I probably wasn't going to survive. So by God's grace and providence, three days after graduation, I joined the United States Air Force. Immediately following after that, I got involved in the wrong crowd. Bad company corrupts good morals, right? I spent the next three years steeped into alcohol and weed. The end of my third year in the Air Force, the Air Force Office of Special Investigation tried me with possession, use, and distribution of marijuana. And I was charged with two months in the brig and a bad conduct discharge and a couple more minor charges. The day of my court-martial is when I actually I gave my heart to Christ. God used that time in my life to open my eyes of my depravity and my need for Christ for salvation, in which I repented of my sins and submitted to Him. And that was on January 11, 2012. Afterwards, I attended an Assembly of God church with a friend I met during light-duty term after confinement, awaiting my discharge. I continued the Assembly of God Church after coming home, in which a few years I became acquainted and served with an elderly widow, which most of you know as Miss Bonnie Kosminski. Later on, I became an unordained acting assistant pastor at the Assembly of God Church, in which I preached one sermon and taught one Sunday school series. That Sunday school series was apologetics. Ms. Bonney taught the expositional portion of apologetics, which was through Isaiah 6, while I taught the practical portion of apologetics. I was just spouting the evidential stuff, you know, stuff that I learned from Frank Turek and Ravi Zacharias, J. Warren Wallace, and guys like them about, you know, the cosmological argument, the fine-tuning moral ontological argument, all the normal arguments you would see in evidential methods. After one or two years of that, being in the AOG church, I was awakened to the unbiblical doctrines within there and dived deeper into theological studies in the Bible and using the Bible as my main resource and not to evangelist or careered apologist. Around 2017, I think I would reclassify myself at that point as a Reformed Baptist. And by God's grace and his sovereign work, I am here today as a deacon ordained at Grace Church, and we're going to be teaching and going over presuppositional apologetics. So it's just a mull over of where I've been in both my life, my religious background, and my apologetical growth as well. Now we're gonna be looking at what apologetics is in a systematic theological manner. Meaning we'll be learning what apologetics is according to all of scripture. To start chapter one of presuppositionalism, we'll be looking at the locus classicus of our topic, which is the charter text of Apologia, 1 Peter 3.15. But before we do that, I do wanna preface apologetics in general with the Great Commission. The Great Commission being found in Matthew 28, 18 through 20. If I can get a couple volunteers of who thinks they can actually fill this passage out. Maybe somebody that can do one verse at a time. Chip, you think you can do it, Anthony? All right, since this is not one that was really texted out prior, how about y'all help me? When Jesus came to them and said, all authority has something, I don't know. Has been given to me. I haven't prayed for you. That's what that is. All authority in heaven and on earth. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Y'all aren't actually cheating, I like it. Should have had you come up and do it. Baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And behold. to the end of the age. Okay. So for those who have refreshed themselves on this portion or at least can remember what the setting is, you see on your preface page, question number two, What's the setting in the Great Commission? When? Approximately when was this, when did this occur? For those of you who don't know, our last session as a men's group, we actually did go over the Great Commission. So this is kind of fresh for some of us. The when is after the resurrection. So this is after the resurrection. Does anybody know where the Great Commission happened and it was given to? Anthony, you remember? Say again? More specific. Physical, actually, where? So what was a usual location for prayer, isolation, and revelation from God? Say again? Yeah. On a mountain. Yep. And then the who? Yep. So it's from God, the person of Christ, to his disciples. And what were they doing? What were they doing? They were worshipping him. It says the disciples were worshipping him. So the when is after the resurrection, where is on the mountain, who is from God to his disciples, what is the disciples were worshipping him. So in the context of the Great Commission, to whom is the Great Commission given? All Christians. Yep, all Christians. And what I'm trying to do here is not only build a platform of the purpose of evangelism in which apologetics is rooted in evangelism, but I also want to make a reconciliation of the sovereignty of God and evangelism. A lot of people outside of the Reformed church say, if God's sovereign, then what's the purpose of evangelism? What's the purpose to pray? What's the purpose of doing anything if he is sovereign? So question number four, how is the what setting important to understand evangelism if we believe we are commissioned by a sovereign God? Who knows? Westminster Shorter, or the Puritan Catechism, question one, and answer one. Is it the one that says, what is the chief end of man? Yep, what's the chief end of man? Answer? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. So the what setting, in the Great Commission, the disciples were worshiping Him, Question four, we see that's important because we are created to worship God. Therefore, we go so others can ultimately worship God. Does God need our worship? He don't need anything from us, does he? But do we need to worship God? Yeah, because that's our design nature. It's the chief end of man. So question five, why is the term evangelism misleading in today's Christian application? I would... It's only half of it. Yep. Evangelize and tell them, but then you have to teach them to be good disciples, which is... along the process of evangelism, not evangelism, but a further process? I would say probably less than half. Yeah, that's spot on, Anthony. The reason why it's misleading is it insinuates the go part of the Great Commission as the only requirement. No making the disciples, perhaps no gospel preaching and apologetics. today's evangelism, especially in American Christianity, it's just simply to go. Gather a couple teenagers who are on fire for the Lord because they're in a church where there's no discipleship occurring, and they go to Costa Rica for a week and talk to a bunch of the locals and then leave. There's no discipleship, there's no building up of a local church in that area. So evangelism is very misleading, but evangelism is the entirety of the Great Commission. So question six, what is the crux of the Great Commission? The main point. The main goal. Make disciples. Making disciples is the main goal, is the crux of the Great Commission. So question seven, how does Christ bookend his commissioning to the disciples? He says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. And behold, I am with you always at the end of the age. How are we to view this? When we think about the Great Commission, it's almost like we omit the bookend. And we just remember the go therefore. And maybe we'll remember the baptizing part too. He bookends it with words of comfort and reassurance of his sovereignty. Right. because he has the authority over all of it. A lot of times, the fearful part of our sanctifying work in Christianity is the going and evangelizing part. It's where we're gripped with fear. We're fearful of how people will view us or respond to us. Maybe it's to a friend, and we're fearful that we might end that relationship. That's because we forget how Christ bookends his great commission to us. So question eight, if God were not sovereign, we would not be able to pray, evangelize, disciple, worship, or even become regenerate. True or false? It's true. It's true, so the question to the outsider of Reformed theology, if God's sovereign, what's the purpose of evangelism? Why? Why even pray? They don't understand, if God were not sovereign, we wouldn't be able to pray. We wouldn't be able to evangelize, right? All authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. And he is with us always to the end of the age. What daily task performed by a Christian proves that every true believer knows God is absolutely sovereign, and why? I like that I made this sheet without actually giving you guys any time of preparation for this preface page, because I'm getting you guys to think. This is a key thing, and these are things that I didn't even know. Prayer? Prayer. Prayer. Prayer. Why? Why is it prayer? Why prayer? God was a sovereign by prayer. He didn't have the power to change or to change us to pray. Wouldn't do it if it wasn't for it. Prayer is the daily task performed that proves every true believer, regardless if you're Reformed, if you're Calvinistic, if you're Arminian, knows God is absolutely sovereign, whether they admit it or not, because prayer acknowledges our thankfulness to Him in our past and present, through creation, through regeneration, through our privileges, and acknowledges our dependence on Him, right? The Armenian who denies the sovereign election knows that he's sovereign, otherwise there's no reason for him to pray to him, knowing that it's ultimately him, God, that he must rely on. It's ultimately God who he has to thank for everything that he has, his very life, his very justification. It's God and God alone who he has to thank for that, right? So whether he admits it or not, when he hits those knees on the floor, he knows. He admits it. We'll get to that. Romans 1 says everybody knows, right? Well, there's a lot of people who pray to false gods knowing that it's a false god. Right, so we're gonna dive into that. Romans one, I think that's chapter five. But we're gonna get a lot of hints at that, which you said, Mark. Every person is created in the image of God. He's the author of all mankind. And it's written on their hearts who their creator is. So, to what you said, Christians, Yeah, they wouldn't pray if they didn't believe, but even the non-Christians. So we'll dive a little bit into that later on. But question 10, what works are implied between go and make disciples? So between here and here, what are we implying is happening? That the Passover word. Say again? Passing the word. Passing the word, so evangelism. And in evangelism, you have to sometimes use what? What is our topic? Apologetics. So it's implying we're using evangelism and apologetics between going and make disciples. Christ isn't telling us to go next door. and then make a disciple by going next door. You have to witness to him first. And there's gonna be conversation and dialogue, questions, maybe debate. That's where apologetics comes in. Give me a definition of. Definition of what? Apologetics. Okay, anybody wanna try that? Yeah, that's the most basic one. Anybody else? Yeah Yeah, let's get into that after this last question. What is the crux of evangelism? What's the main goal if we know the main goal of the Great Commission is to make disciples? What's the main goal of evangelism? And they wrote down for me I Bingo. To present Christ Jesus. That's the main goal. Main goal is not to prove the existence of God. It's not to lay out the moral conditions of man. The main goal of evangelism is to present Christ Jesus. OK. So now, you like that, don't you? This is the one you guys have been prepared for. Volunteers. I know some of y'all know this. One verse at a time, please. Anything you got next? The first one is my good one. Well, come get this one, and we'll switch it out. You should suffer for the sake of the sake of righteousness. I don't want to put the first letter again. You are blessed. There. Huh? There. There. I think I always miss that one, even when I do it at home. There, there. Intimidation. There what? Say it again, Jeff. Intimidation. Intimidation. Huh? Intimidation. Do not be troubled. All right. All right. The last time you see doofed me up there, that's me. Yep. See, I've been learning every day, that's me. Why are you going to write it if that's not supposed to be here? Chip, you got next? Thank you, brother. by Christ, as Lord and Lord. And always be ready. to everyone who asks you to give an account for the Pope. That's right here. Hold up. Notice the next word. Respect. Or reverence. It's in the ASB. All right, one more volunteer for the last verse. I didn't read the verse 16. I was trying today to memorize 15. JC? No? I would just be writing whatever anybody says. Tom, you probably memorized the whole chapter. No, not quite. Yeah, I don't have that one either. 15, but not 16. Anybody? and keep a good conscience, so that in the thing in which you are slandered, those who revile Your, Reval, your what? Good behavior. Good behavior in? Christ. Christ. And what will happen to him? Will be put to shame. Will be put to shame. So in chapter one of presuppositionalism, we're going over verse 15. But I hope you guys can see the importance of having 14 and 16, which bookend it, also hidden in your heart because it highlights it up, lifts 15 up. It elaborates on it in many ways. The thing that kept coming to me that the Lord just kept laying on my heart was to sanctify Christ the Lord in your hearts. Because without that, I want to do this under my power. I want to fight somebody in my life. That really broke me down as I was reading it, that without that, you don't build a good conscience. You don't build a gentleness and reverence. And it was a blessing memorizing the verse just for 15 and not care for nothing else. Just to get you prepared to make that defense. That's right. So going back to the Great Commission evangelism, which we would say is the fearful part, right? It's where fear creeps in. It's not in debate, really, because once we're in dialogue, we're already in dialogue and conversation. That's where the debate is then occurring. We're already in it. It's the getting started. That's the hard part. How does he start that? Do not fear their intimidation. Do not be troubled, but. Now we're getting into it. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a what in the Greek? Jeff? Make a what in the Greek? I can't read it, I'm sorry. Make a defense. Right, that's defense. In the Greek, that is what? Anybody know? Case. in the Greek. What's the Greek word? Say it. Say it. Apologia. Apologia. Or apologia. That's where we get the word apologetics. being ready to make an apologia in the Greek. So that's where we get this lotus classicus, the classic phrase of apologetics, found in 1 Peter 3.15, apologia, apologetics. So let's dive into it. Can I get a couple volunteers to read a few? We'll do one guy, one paragraph at a time, just for a little while. It's not a big chapter. We probably won't even read the entirety of it. Who wants to, let me go ahead and read this first paragraph before we dive into a universal call. So the charter text for Christian apologetics, 1 Peter 3.15. The following article discusses five aspects of Christian apologetics taken from this text. A universal call to be ready. The purpose of being ready. Defending the hope in us. Commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ. and fifthly, a spirit of humility. You'll see all five of those for your answer to question three on your page for presuppositionalism chapter one. We've covered the first three questions so far. If I can get a volunteer to read that first paragraph, please. The universal call to be ready. In the above text, Peter exhorts, be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh. It is an urgent command and call to all Christians to be prepared to engage in defending the faith. The sense in the Greek is to be perpetually prepared at any time and all the time. Every believer must be ready to give an answer, not just the experts and professionals, not just philosophers, scientists, and theologians, of every Christian. Negligence in this duty is not an option. It is a moral necessity for every Christian to be continually ready to engage in apologetics. All right, so your next three questions, four, five, and six, is this verse a command of God? Yes. Question five, what verbs are found in this verse to indicate commands? There's three of them, if you didn't know. Sanctify. Sanctify. Be ready. Be ready. Give a chance. Isn't it good to know that our very first command is to sanctify Christ as Lord? And unfortunately, that's the one that we usually leave out. Who is the command given to? All Christians. That goes back to our question in the preface. Who is the Great Commission given to? All Christians, right? All right, volunteer for the next paragraph, or next section, if you will, for the purpose of being ready. The purpose of being ready is to give an answer to every man that asks it. The Greek word for answer is, I'm not going to say that. This is a technical term denoting the argument a defendant makes before a judge in a court of law responding to an accusation. Entomologically, that is a compound word derived from the preposition. You don't have to say it. I do not. No, sir. No, sir. Just say it. When you guys see those words, just say that word. All right. Meaning from and that word. diminutive of that word meaning utterance or speech. Thus, it indicates speaking from a certain position or persuasion. Our English word apologetics derives from the transliteration of the Greek term. Theologically, apologetics means to defend the faith. A Christian is to be always ready to give his defense to present his case for the hope that is in him. Peter exhorts his readers to answer from a reasoned position. for example, to give a reason for the hope that is in them. The Greek term employed for reason denotes logic, not logic in its formal or symbolic sense, but as a consistent rationale. Defending the faith is a reasoned defense, a consistent rationale of our hope that is in Christ Jesus. Every Christian must be prepared to intelligently articulate and affectionately defend the doctrinal content of the Christian faith. All right. All right, defending the hope in us. Defending the faith as presented in First Peter is a response to an unbeliever's question. More specifically, it is responding to a question about the hope in us. The great term for hope, which means expectation, hope is the expectation of something invisible and unseen. Literally, it is the VNU hope. Every Christian possesses hope in Christ, hope of salvation, resurrection, heaven, and eternal life. These are not probabilities, but certain realities. Although this hope is outwardly invisible, it is manifested in the life of a believer. We'll skip down that last paragraph. Christians will be ill-treated by the world. The historical background of 1 Peter 3.15 is persecution and slander directed against the good behavior of Christians. Peter tells these Christians that their good conduct under such abuse will cause their slanders to be ashamed. It's something we don't see in America, really. We don't really fully know in depth what Peter means, but even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness. I personally like to hope that one day I will. I personally know that one day in America we will. But you are blessed, right? I think a good thing about persecution is it definitely purges out the false. It purges out the wolves. But that's the continuing on and defending. So the answer back to your question, Jeff, earlier on is apologetics is defending the hope. in us, right? Now, we see apologetics in other religions, other theistic worldviews, but ultimately, in the Christian perspective, we're talking about our faith. We're going to dive in that later on, but I want us to be thinking about How much of our faith are we supposed to be defending? Is it just the gospel? Is it just the nature and the attributes of the triune God? Christ and Christ alone, or is it all of it? I'm all over that, we'll get into that later on. Let me get somebody to volunteer for the commitment of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Okay, the authorized version reads, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. However, from the better Greek manuscripts, it is actually sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. And it's Kyrion, De, Ton, Christon, Agiosate, Entis, Kardias, Humo. Lord is placed forward in the word order for emphasis, as Lord, Christ, sanctified in your hearts. works of apologetics. The word sanctified, hagiazo, means to set apart, to separate. The aorist imperator form of the verb denotes obeying the determination. The Christian apologist must be wholly committed to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Holy commitment. All right. Question seven, what's the difference between evangelism and apologetics? Right. Apologetics is initiating. I mean, I'm sorry, evangelism is initiating and apologetics is responsive. Right. When we're evangelizing, we're going or initiating conversation, dialogue, We're initiating and speaking the fact that you are sick and in need of a savior. And our apologetics is coming into effect when we have to respond to their questions or accusations. And sometimes, really, in America, we usually see apologetics almost has a sense of initiating because we're already in a presupposed mindset that we're going to get backlash. Because we know in America, the the percentage percentile of Christians in this nation is vastly decreasing. And we know we're living in a secular society. We know we live in a age where abortion is on the rise. Where Evolution is the common teaching in schools, right? So we can almost initiate an apologetic, but we're really presupposing what we're already going into. So we're just responding back to that accusation, that mindset of death, of wickedness, of murder, evolution, denying of God. Let's skip on to the last section, which is a spirit of humility. A volunteer for that, please. By the way, we note 1 Peter 3.15 also speaks of the spirit and attitude in which we are to defend the faith. The Christian apologist must adorn himself with two things, meekness and fear, can mean either fear of Christ, as it did in 1 Peter. all human beings possess the dignity of being made in the image of God. Therefore, they are able to be treated with respect and in becoming manners suitable to the dignity of God. Can you read that next paragraph, please, sir? It is essential to conduct apologetics in an atmosphere of mutual respect. We are not to be parading our knowledge or be arrogant, rude, or disrespectful. We are not to be contentious. Being belligerent and obnoxious is not any good for any cause of Christ and only serves to irritate and provoke. All right, so. Question eight. What should be the primary reason causing a scenario that brings about apologetic implications? Us living a Christ-filled life, I would say. Bingo. A Christian sanctifying life. Or the Christian's conduct, right? What does Peter tell us in this passage right before he tells us to make a defense? Before he even mentions the word apologia, what is he telling us? Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Right? That should be step one in apologetics. So we should be building our conduct and character in Christ. Our very walk should have the unbeliever ask questions. Why are you always happy? Why do I never hear you cuss? Why is there always a smile on your face? I heard it today, this morning, from an unbeliever. Why are you always smiling? Get that stupid smile off your face. Let me tell you why I'm always smiling, right? So it's the building of the Christian conduct, sanctifying Christ as Lord in our hearts. So I want to go back to the previous point, which is the commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and kind of mull over that a little bit. The first paragraph was read. Further, the apologetics is command to place Christ as Lord in the heart. The term heart, Tom? Say again? Cargia. Cargia. Which page are you on again? So second paragraph of a commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The term heart in scripture is variously used sometimes for the mind and understanding, sometimes for the will, sometimes for the affection, sometimes for the conscience, and sometimes for the whole soul. Generally, it denotes the whole soul of a man and all his faculties, intellect, will, and affections. In particular, the heart is the place where self-consciousness functions, the center of man's reasoning, thinking, and understanding. Therefore, to sanctify Christ as Lord in the heart is to bow to Christ's lordship in all reasoning and thinking, the entire world of thought. somewhat of a thought exercise here, but in question nine, what is the soul of a man and how is it different from his spirit? I'll trade lightly here. Any other thoughts? So we don't have a biblical definition, but it could be described as the spirit being the actual life and existence of a man wherein is imprisoned by the physical body. You know, this is not me, right? So the soul could be seen as the senses of the spirit. Kind of like touch, taste, smell, speak, see, hear are the senses of the physical body. How Paul and Nelson laid it out, the affections, the emotions, the will, desire, the intellect, the conscience are the senses of the spirit, what could be described as the soul. So that's one way to look at it. But we see many times in scripture, question 10, what body part is the soul sometimes referred to? The heart. The heart. So when Christ, I mean, when God, through Peter, tells us to sanctify him as Lord in our hearts, is he telling us in the sense of our intellect, our conscience, our affections, or all of it, the soul? Everything. Everything, the soul. Right? So real quick, can I get three volunteers? Somebody go to Matthew 22, 37. Somebody go to Mark 12, 30. And somebody else to go to Luke 10, 27. It's on your page on question 12. Who wants to read that Matthew passage? Go ahead. Who's got Matthew? Matthew 22, 37. All right. And he said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. OK. We have a Matthew, we have heart, we have soul, and we have mind. We love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. Oh, now we got strength. Andrew, yours, who is speaking there? And Matthew, who's speaking? Jesus. Jesus. Chip, who's speaking in there? Christ. Christ. Who wants to get Luke 10, 27? Yes, we love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself. All right, so we have all four again. And Luke, who's speaking in that one, Anthony? Jesus. Nope. Gotcha. John? Oh, it's the... Yep. Let me spread this out a little bit. Came up to him to test him, right? So we have heart, we have soul, we have mind, we have strength. What Paul Nelson laid out to us in that paragraph, we see Affections, emotions, where would you put that? Heart. What about intellect and reasoning? Mind. What about conscience? Let's start in soul. What about the will? What could you add underneath the wheel? We talk about it all the time, as men, be disciplined. Sometimes, instead of discipline, we rely too much on what in the gym? Motivation. These are all umbrellaed. Right? Because the heart, mind, strength, all these things are the soul. That's why you guys were confused on conscience. It's all kind of umbrellaed in the same terminology. Right? So when somebody says, who are you really? Who am I really? I'm not really Ian Haynes. That's just my name. It doesn't say who I am. Five foot 11 white dude with red hair. It's not who I am. You know, it's my spirit is who I am. And this is what makes up my spirit, my soul, the senses of who I am. Right. So I think that's just one way to look at it to kind of avoid that confusion, because you see underneath that little chart there, you have other scriptures where soul and spirit are said in the same verse. Right, so how do we articulate in our little feeble minds of what's being said here? So, moving on. Next paragraph, the Christian must submit to the absolute authority of Christ's word in the work of apologetics. Hmm? It's six in mine. Yes, third paragraph, we're still underneath the commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Yep. So the Christian must submit to the absolute authority of Christ's word in the work of apologetics. The word of God must be established as the absolute standard of all truth and knowledge and asserted as the ultimate reference point for all reasoning. to seek to prove the reliability of God's word by evidence is to commit intellectual treason, defying the authority of Christ's word. It would promote man's reasoning above Christ's authority and put man in judgment of God's word. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the author of the word of God. He is Lord. There is no higher authority. Hence, the Christian is obligated to presuppose Christ and his word in the activity of apologetics. It is upon this imperative to sanctify Christ as Lord that defending the faith functions. So your question 13 on your sheet, what are the standards of truth and wisdom for the Christians? The word of God, which comes from where? Who? Christ. So the standard of truth is Christ. Because Christ says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So the standard of truth and wisdom for the Christian is Christ and his word. I have it in parentheses there in question 13, the theological evangelical apologist. I put that there because every Christian is a theologian, every Christian is evangelical and every Christian is an apologist. Or either good ones or bad ones. Who knows what the word theology means? The study of God. And if you're a Christian, what do you do? Well, you study God, to know God by his word, right? So by default, you are a theologian. You might not have a career at being one, but you are one, right? And via the Great Commission, huh? Yeah, and by the Great Commission, we're all commanded, right, to evangelize. We're all called in 1 Peter 3.15 to make a defense, so we're all apologists. I was going to insert the answer or really the definition in question 14, but I don't think it's too difficult for you guys to write it down, but if you can look it up real quick too, but definition for presupposition is simply something that is assumed or in advanced or taken for granted. A second definition could be an idea assumed prior to engaging in conversation. A third definition, I guess the most simplest one of all, is to presuppose. So if we who are Christians hold to Christ and His Word as the standard of truth and wisdom, do we presuppose His Word as ultimately the ultimate authority? So when we're out there making a defense, Shouldn't we be using his word as our authority? Right? Think about that. So, I think these next questions we'll see a little bit more in the next paragraph. Can I get a volunteer for that? Yes, sir. This means that the apologetics is not neutral. To assume neutrality is interpreting any evidence would be to relinquish the lordship of Christ, whose word alone is the absolute standard for all truth and reality. Christians must refuse to think or reason according to the secular mindset of the world and their apostate epistemology. Neutrality is a delusion. because everyone has presuppositions that are held to by faith. The unbeliever has his presuppositions and a corresponding worldview that is antithetical to the Christians. Likewise, the Christian has the presuppositions and is commanded to reason from Christ's Word as the ultimate authority. Some might object that you are coming to the unbeliever with a biased point of view. The unbeliever has his biases as well. Is there any neutral ground where both can be objective in interpreting evidences? My answer is neutrality is a myth. Everyone is inherently biased. It is a delusion to think that man can be neutral in his interpretation of evidence. We all have our presuppositions that dictate our interpretation of reality. The unbeliever would have the Christian give up the lordship of Christ and his word in order to adopt his ungodly worldview. and under the guise of being neutral and objective. Okay. Can there be neutrality? No. So, something to think about. I know we're not gonna be diving into this much later on. We're just spending the first six chapters exegeting the text from scripture before we really dive deeply into this method of presuppositionalism. But based on that, if there's no neutrality at all, what does the evidentialist do when he engages in apologetics? Comes to the unbeliever on neutral playing field. He tries to come down and meet him at his level and bring him up to knowing the existence of God. Right? There's no holding to Christ and his word as authority. So we'll dive into that a little bit later on, but just something to think about. So question 15, false. There can be no neutrality among differing perspectives, religions, and worldviews. So real quick over these next ones, you guys already know these answers, but in scripture, where do we first see an account of reasoning between differing perspectives? In the Garden of Eden. The serpent reasoned to Adam and Eve. Did God really say? No, that's not the case. There was no neutrality. Man gave into the serpent, abandoning God and his word. Abandoning God and his single commandment. So since the fall, what is the state of mankind? Totally depraved. Hostile to God. Isn't it interesting that A believer would go to an unbeliever and try to become neutral to somebody who's hostile to God and his word. So, 18, what is the starting point in our reasoning, in our apologetics? What is our starting point? Genesis 1-1. No, that's not what I'm looking for. Somewhat, it is somewhat true. Say again? Well, let's go back to question 13. What's the answer for question 13? Question 13 answer was Christ and His Word. So question 18, what is our starting point in our reasoning, in our apologetics? It's Christ and His Word. That is our starting point. We don't come down and meet the unbeliever on his playing ground and say, well, let's start over. If there was no God, you know, no. No, our starting point is Christ and his word. So we have to, we have to wrap all this up into question 19. How should Christians dress themselves in the area of apologetics? With gentleness and reverence, right? It's what Jeff read. It's the spirit of humility. Too much at one time. So I think it's question two on your page. Question three, what are the five aspects to be found? Where's the universal call to be ready? Say again. First period three, 15. Where do we see the universal call to be ready? Always being ready. Always being ready, right? So universal call to be ready. Who is it giving it to? Everybody. It's universal. The purpose of being ready. What's the purpose? To give an account. Right? What's the defending the hope in us? He said the third aspect is defending the hope in us. Where do we see that? Make a defense to everyone. Right? Commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ. Aspect four. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. The spirit of humility. Yet with gentleness and reverence. Right? You guys see these five aspects in this verse? I think we should, it would do us well to know the first and latter part. We start with apologetics by sanctifying him as Lord in our hearts, but we dress in gentleness and reverence. And sometimes we're prone as mere man to be hostile in our own defense. to be negative, to be rude, to sometimes bring out that old nature, right? I don't know about you guys, but sometimes I'm quick to say, you idiot. Not you. I ain't very gentle or respectful, is it, right? So that's something that we have to kind of keep in mind. Clothe ourself in Christ. Clothe ourself in gentleness and reverence, you know? And a good way to do that in preparation is to be prayed up. Knowing full well in your mind that you're going to be engaging in dialogue about your hope, your Lord. So it would do us well to pray that the Lord will give us a spirit of humility. And even though they're suppressing the truth, Romans 118, Genesis 127, he created man in his image, right? So his creation, even though they're suppressing the truth, that, I guess, is the jealous and reckless, right? It's his image we're going to. He created him just as a man. It's just in his providence, he woke up from the dead, right? So I guess it's important also just to know that there is preaching too. That's right. That's right. I don't know about you guys, but some of us have a background of being that hostile person to Christ. And what took us to come to him was obviously the Holy Spirit, but was being spoken to by somebody else with love and respect. It's kind of hard to become a person of faith when you're yelled at and screamed at. I have my own opinions about street preaching, but we'll get to that later. So that's the foundation, the locus classicus of apologia, apologetics, 1 Peter 3.15. So next time we're going to go into Jude 1.3. That would be a good one for us to memorize also. Have in our back pocket.