Defending your faith- called Apologetics, is something every Christian should be familiar with as well. It’s important to know the facts, why you believe what you believe, and be able to answer those questions critics and skeptics ask, instead of replying, “You just have to have faith”. I never liked that answer. I researched as much as possible so I could rationalize to someone else why Jesus truly is the Messiah. Faith is great, but faith backed by knowledge is powerful.

You can find many of the apologetics web sites by doing a web search of “Christian apologetics”. Below are some great books I highly recommend reading as well.

Here are some great apologetics books:

• Inspired Evidence, Only One Reality- by Von Vett & Malone.
• The Apologetics Study Bible- by Holman Bible Publishers.
• One-Minute Answers to Skeptics- By Charlie H. Campbell.
• The Case For Christ- By Lee Strobel.
• Mere Christianity- By C.S. Lewis.
• Cold Case Christianity- By Warner Wallace. (my favorite as an ex-cop)
• The New Evidence that Demands a Verdict- by Josh McDowell.

Videos to search: NDE’s or near death experiences.

I also found it really interesting to see how many people have had life after death experiences and actually lived to tell about them. I explored this topic before becoming a believer of Christ, because I had to first believe a “God” existed. The thing that was amazing to me is that people all over the world that have had these experiences, all either describe a loving God presence and some describe an evil or sinister one. Some NDE’s are in the most remote parts of the world and have no outside contact with other people, yet still they see the same God presence. Many of those people don’t see Jesus which causes one to ask the question- “what happens to the people that die who have never heard of Jesus? Do they go to heaven? It is not written anywhere in the Bible, so this is just speculation and theory on my part. If you have a pure heart and have never been exposed to the Gospels or Jesus, God gives those people grace (the unmerited favor of God) when they pass away. When I say never exposed to the Gospels, that doesn’t mean knowing about the Bible, but just not reading it. I am referring to someone who has never heard of the bible or Jesus nor has been exposed to it’s existence. Just not wanting to read it does not mean you fall into this category. An interesting note: Jesus also predicts the end of the world in Matthew 24, and mentions in that same verse that the world will come to an end when the Gospels are preached to all nations. The internet is now making that possible. This begs us to ask the question- are we living in the last days?

 

14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

(Matthew 24:14 ESV)