Apologetics and Defending Your Faith – a talk with Greg Koukl

Apologetics and Defending Your Faith - a talk with Greg Koukl
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April 08, 2022
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The Word at Westminster
The Word at Westminster
Apologetics and Defending Your Faith - a talk with Greg Koukl
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Do you want to know how to explain (or defend) your faith with greater confidence and clarity?

Join the club. This is an area called “apologetics.”

Greg Koukl has written a helpful and insight book on the topic. In fact, it has sold more than 300,000 copies! It is called ‘Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions.’

This episode of The Word at Westminster (cross-posted from ‘The Pulse Podcast with Matthew Ruttan’) is a talk with Greg Koukl. A range of topics are discussed (see full list below), but there is a focus on some of the critical issues in apologetics such as knowing the reason for your hope, thinking clearly, and getting confident.

But first let us tell you a bit more about our guest.

Greg holds MA degrees in both apologetics and philosophy. He’s spoken on over 80 university campuses and has hosted his own radio talk show for 33 years defending “Christianity worth thinking about.” He is the founder and president of Stand to Reason and serves as adjunct professor of Christian apologetics at Biola University.

William Craig Lane says about his book: “tactics will make you a more effective ambassador for Christ.” In the forward to this book, Lee Strobel (author of the best selling ‘The Case for Christ,’ says: “We live in a day when militant atheism is on the march… Let Greg be your mentor as you master new approaches to talking with others about Jesus. As Greg likes to say, “You don’t need to hit home runs. You don’t even need to get on base. Just getting up to bat—engaging others in friendly conversation—will do.”

You can listen to the audio version of our talk here or wherever you listen to podcasts (Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher). You can also watch it here on YouTube.

Beneath, you will also find the title to Greg’s book, other relevant resources, as well as a list of more specific topics and quotes from the interview itself.

Enjoy!

Topics:
-What is apologetics?
-Making a defense or ‘case-making’
-What is the reason for Greg’s hope?
-How details matter
-Getting used to hostility
-Doing the work to get confident
-Rejoicing at being different
-Falling out of love with fitting in
-The existence of evil turns out to be an argument for the existence of God, not against
-Two big issues: the resurrection of Christ and the existence of God
-A lot of Christians question Christianity because they don’t like some of the details
-There is something about the human condition which hungers for deeper meaning (because there is something to satisfy the hunger)
-What it means that “your goal is to win the person, not necessarily to win the argument.”
-The importance of asking other people questions about their views to better understand them and to share your own.
-“We live in this life for a different life.”
-A modest goal: “All I want to do is put a stone in someone’s shoe. I want to give him something worth thinking about, something he can’t ignore because it continues to poke at him in a good way.”
-Information about Greg’s forthcoming book: “Street Smarts.”

Books discussed:
-Greg Koukl: Tactics: A Game Plan for Discussing Your Christian Convictions
-Stephen C. Meyer: Return of the God Hypothesis
Other Resources:
-Website: www.str.org (Stand to Reason)
-Book: Alister McGrath, Mere Apologetics
-Book: Timothy Keller, The Reason for God
-Book: Mark Clark, The Problem of God
-Book: Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ

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