What is the Goal of
Answering
Their Questions?
| What does it mean to be ready in I Pet. 3:15? |
| “Every day and in every way helping our non-Christian friends take one step closer to Jesus Christ.” |
| “God knows I don’t measure up. I just do the best that I can. Isn’t that enough?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#1
(1 of 3)
Common Barrier in Objection
#1
(2 of 3)
Common Barrier in Objection
#1
(3 of 3)
| “It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you are sincere and you don’t hurt anyone else! |
Common Barrier in Objection #2
Common Barrier in Objection #2 (cont.)
| “What is so special about Christianity? I thought that all religions basically teach the same thing.” |
| “Buddha claimed to point to the way, Muhammad claimed to be a prophet of God, but Jesus Christ is the only major religious leader that ever claimed to be God, who fulfilled prophecy, lived a sinless life, and then died on the cross and rose from the dead.” | |
| Dave Geisler |
| “How can you claim that there is only one way to God? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(cont.)
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(1-5)
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(2 of 5)
| “How can you claim there is only one way to God?” | |
| What would you say to them? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(3 of 5)
| “Don’t we have to say in some way we are sorry for the things we said or did that hurt the other person? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(4 of 5)
| How do we deal with the exclusivity charge? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#4
(5 of 5)
| Christianity is too exclusive! |
| “So many people disagree, so doesn’t that show that relativism must be true?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#5
(1 of 3)
| Answer: | |
| “The relativist… confuses the difficulty of finding truth with the possibility of discerning truth or even affirming its existence.” | |
| Taken from, Paul Copan, True For You, But Not For Me, p. 26 |
Common Barrier in Objection
#5
(2 of 3)
| “Would you agree with me that just because people may disagree about whether a particular action is right or wrong, it doesn’t mean necessarily that there are no right or wrongs actions anywhere in the universe?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#5
(3 of 3)
| “Is there really no difference morally between Bill Graham or Adolf Hitler?” |
| “What about those who have never heard the Gospel?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(1 of 7)
| “How is it fair for God to condemn someone for not having enough knowledge to save them, but just enough knowledge to condemn them?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(2 of 7)
| Romans 1:18-20 says that men have knowledge about God, but they turn away from Him. As a result, they have enough knowledge to condemn them even thought they do not have enough knowledge about God to save them. |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(3 of 7)
| Remove Their Barriers | |
| God is not responsible for giving us greater light of who He is when we have not responded to the light we already have been given. | |
| Matt. 13:12 – “For whoever has, to him shall more be given more.” | |
| Examples: | |
| Ethiopian in Acts 8:26-40, Cornelius in Acts 10, the God-fearing Greeks in Acts 17 |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(4 of 7)
| Let’s say that you’re lost in a desert and that it is getting dark. Furthermore, you’re hungry and thirsty and know deep down inside that if you don’t find food and shelter soon you are probably going to die. | |
| Then you see a speck of light on the horizon indicating that there is human contact out there. But instead of moving toward the light, you move away from it, whose fault is it if you die? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(5 of 7)
| Because, you saw a light that indicated that there was someone who might be able to help you, but instead you chose to go away from the light. |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(6 of 7)
| As a further illustration of God’s blamelessness regarding our choices, we know that the Bible reveals that there will be people of every dialect from every nation in Heaven (Revelation 5:9). |
Common Barrier in Objection
#6
(7 of 7)
| “The important question that you need to answer is: | |
| “Now that you know, what are you going to do with this information since you do know about Christ?” |
| “It is okay to believe what you want, but isn’t it wrong to try to convert others?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#7
(1 of 4)
| What is the belief behind the question? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#7
(2 of 4)
| “It is okay to believe what you want, but isn’t it wrong to try to convert others?” | |
| How should we respond? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#7
(3 of 4)
| “If persuasion may be acceptable, then how do you determine whether persuading someone to belief something is right or wrong?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#7
(4 of 4)
| It is okay to believe what you want, but you shouldn’t be trying to convert others? |
| “How can we know whether the Bible is really reliable or not?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(1 of 8)
| Our Response: |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(2 of 8)
| “Why don’t you believe that the Bible is as reliable as as some of the historical books written around the same time period, like Josephus or Tacitus, or Homer’s Iliad?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(3 of 8)
| “So if we can know certain things from history, why is it that we can not know that certain things about the Bible are true? I’m not asking why we can’t know that everything about the Bible is true. But why can’t we know that some of the basic historical events surrounding Jesus’ life, that the Bible records, are in fact true?” |
Possible Questions Behind the Question?
| How do you know the Bible hasn’t been mistranslated? | |
| Couldn’t they have accurately recorded a bunch of lies? | |
| How do we know that the Bible is not just a myth that developed over time? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(5 of 8)
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(6 of 8)
| Taken from The New Evidence That Demands a Verdict | |
| by Josh McDowell, P. 43 |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(7 of 8)
| Writer Date Subject | |
| Cornellius 112 Death of Jesus
at the hands of Pilate Tacitus |
|
| Lucian 2nd cent. The new cult of Christianity | |
| Flavius 66 Life/Death of Jesus | |
| Josephus | |
| Suetonius 120 Christ-The reason for Jews expulsion from Rome | |
| Pliny 112 Christians bound not to sin - Jesus | |
| Thallus 52 Histories-Darkness at Christ’s death (eclipse) | |
| Philegon 1st cent. Darkness=Eclipse | |
| Mara Bar- 73 Calamities brought by deaths. Socrates, Serapion Pythagorus, and Jesus |
Common Barrier in Objection
#8
(8 of 8)
| “Jesus lived during the time of Tiberius Caesar. He lived a virtuous life. He was a wonder worker. He had a brother named James. He claimed to be the Messiah. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. An eclipse and an earthquake occurred when he died. He was crucified on the eve of the Jewish Passover. His disciples believed that he rose from the dead. His disciples were willing to die for their belief. Christianity spread rapidly as far as Rome. His disciples denied the Roman gods and worshiped Jesus as God.” | |
| Dr. Norman Geisler’s lecture “Twelve Points that Prove Christianity is True” (Order the CD at www.normgeisler.com) |
| “Can you prove to me that God does in fact exist?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(1 of 8)
| Now restate the question: |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(2 of 8)
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(3 of 8)
| Question Their Disbelief | |
| "Can you help me understand something? If most of the people who have ever lived believe in some kind of god(s), why is it that you don't believe in any kind of god?" |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(4 of 8)
| Reflection on Atheism’s
Claim Tearing Down Their Walls |
|
| "Are you telling me that there is absolutely no God? Because to know that, wouldn’t you have to search every corner of the universe to make sure there is no God hiding any where? But, to know that wouldn’t you have to have absolute knowledge – which is one of the attributes of God? | |
| “So, in order to disprove God, wouldn’t one have to be God?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(5 of 8)
| Remove Their Barriers | |
| “Are you absolutely certain there is no God?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(6 of 8)
| “Can I tell you one reason that I believe it matters that God does exist? |
Common Barrier in Objection #9
(7 of 8)
| Your Response: | |
| “Would you agree with me that one would have a hard time fitting into one’s thinking the concept of love, meaning, values, beauty, if we are just effects from material causes?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#9
(8 of 8)
| Would you agree that if something presently exists, | |
| And something can not come from nothing, | |
| Then something must have always existed. |
| “If God is so loving, how can there be a Hell?” |
Common Barrier in Objection #10
| “How can there be a loving God if there is so much evil in the world?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(1 of 7)
| The implication of their question is that God doesn’t exist. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have allowed so much pain and suffering to exist in the world. Yet if He did exist, He wouldn’t really be an all good God. Either way, it would remove the idea that the God that the Christians believes in and worships can actually exist. |
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(2 of 7)
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(3 of 7)
| Don’t we measure what is evil by the standard of good rather than measure good by a standard of evil? | |
| So, if we say something is good or right, doesn’t that imply a moral law? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(4 of 7)
| And if there is a moral law, doesn’t that imply there is a moral law giver? |
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(5 of 7)
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(6 of 7)
| God made everything perfect |
Common Barrier in Objection
#11
(7 of 7)
| If God were to wipe out any evil from this day forward, what would be the results? | |
| Who would be left? |
| “I am pretty comfortable with my beliefs.” |
Common Barrier in Objection #12
| Illuminate the Discrepancies by
Asking Questions Dealing With Those Who Are Comfortable With Their Current Beliefs |
| “I’m pretty sure that Christianity isn’t true” |
Common Barrier in Objection #13
Common Barrier in Objection
#14
(1 of 4)
| “What do you mean by suffering? Do you mean to imply that there is something that is really evil?” |
Common Barrier in Objection
#14
(2 of 4)
| Even if we don’t know God’s purpose, He may still have a good purpose for evil. We do know some good purposes for evil (Rom. 8:28). | |
Common Barrier in Objection
#14
(3 of 4)
Common Barrier in Objection
#14
(4 of 4)
| But why would God create a world if He knew it wasn’t the best possible world He could have Created? |
| “Has anyone ever explained to you how you can have a relationship with God?” |