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Tough Questions

Monday, September 12, 2011

For yesterday's 特备节目, I shared the above topic. By "Tough Questions", I mean the difficult questions about Christianity that our friends might ask us, or those we sometimes even ask ourselves. (E.g., Is the Bible true? How did the world come about? Why does God allow suffering?) Let me introduce a term - apologetics.
Apologetics seeks to answer these questions, and teaches us how to answer them through the means of concrete, physical proof and through logical reasoning:

Colossians 4:6 also teaches us that we have to "let [our] conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that [we] may know how to answer everyone." Apologetics is about winning people, not arguments. What, then, are the objectives of learning apologetics if not for debating people?

To understand why we believe what we believe
To give a defense (We are like defense attorneys defending the defendant, Christianity)
To fight for the truth (We know Christianity is the Truth; it can also be proven by historical, scientific & philosophical evidence)
To clear away obstacles to faith

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Yesterday, I shared 2 Tough Questions: "Does God exist?" and "Did Jesus really rise from the dead?"

Q1: "Does God exist?"
Apart from our beliefs, there is actual, solid evidence that proves He does! There are 3 main arguments:

1. The Cosmological Argument (Cosmology is the study of the origin of the Universe)
Traditionally scientists believed that the universe was eternal (no beginning/end), but new evidence shows that it had a beginning instead:

If the universe had a beginning, it has to have a beginner. Whatever begins to exist, must have a cause. That beginner & cause is proof that there's a God.

2. The Teleological Argument (Or, argument from design.)
"Teleological" comes from the Greek word telos, which means "end/purpose". Many things in nature have a purpose and is often essential to allow life to survive. Chlorophyll in plants are made to make food for the plant. White blood cells are designed to clot blood and keep us from bleeding to death. The Teleological Argument says that, life is too intricate/complicated/complex for the universe to have occurred on its own; there must have been a designer of life who's responsible for all these:

This argument disproves the Big Bang theory (which claims the universe happened when there was a huge explosion -> protons & neutrons randomly hit each other -> elements formed -> matter -> life -> you & me), simply because the universe is too precise to be randomly formed! Someone - God - is responsible for all these intricacies in the universe.

3. The Moral Argument
How do humans intuitively know right from wrong? What standard do we measure right/wrong against? If there is no standard, we won't all agree that murder is right. It would just be our own opinions. However, we somehow know that murder is wrong. The standard that is set is God's standard, the absolute right and wrong, because it's His very nature. Below is a video which will explain the Moral Argument more in depth which I didn't share, so if you have time, do watch:

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Q2: "Did Jesus really rise from the dead?"
This is an extra-important question for us as Christians. 1 Corinthians 15:17 says, "And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins."
Okay this is gonna be a long one. SO, I am just going to post a video which is basically what I shared (plus extra evidence AND he's more convincing):

There are alot of other theories that skeptics have come up with to explain the resurrection of Jesus. But don't worry, there is evidence/reasoning to refute these too. For those who are interested, below is the full-length video refuting the other theories, explained in even more detail + I didn't show all the theories yesterday:

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If you've ever been asked/asked yourself those 2 questions, I hope I have answered them, and that you will be ready to answer these questions in the future. As Ephesians 6:14 - 17 tells us,

Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared. In addition to all of these, hold up the shield of faith to stop the fiery arrows of the devil. Put on salvation as your helmet, and take the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Also, do not be afraid to ask this kinds of questions! Because when you have answered these questions, you will find that your faith is strengthened. May God give us the wisdom and knowledge to know why we believe what we believe, so that we are prepared to answer anyone who asks us for the hope we have in Christ!

More apologetics resources:

One Minute Apologist on Youtube tries to keep the answers short & sweet.
Toddy Tyszka on Youtube has alot of good apologetics videos too.
Josh McDowell, famous apologist who works mainly with youth (That's us!) Check out his youtube channel too.
Lee Strobel, the former-atheist-turned-apologist. I took alot of my stuff from him.
Apologetics.com

If you still can't find what you're looking for, always feel free to look for any one of the laoshis/older people! :)

Labels: sermon, 特备节目

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2 Comments:

Just a question:
Does the moral argument still stand seeing the moral degradation around the world?

By Isaaaca, at September 12, 2011 at 7:35 PM

Hmmm I guess it still does, to a certain extent. Children are still born knowing right from wrong, knowing it's wrong to steal a cookie from the cookie jar when Mom says not to. But it's the way the culture and world has influenced their thinking that makes for the degradation of morals. I hope that answers your question? And evil (and why God lets it happen etc) is a whole other topic to discuss...

By yapning, at September 14, 2011 at 1:07 AM