I write this to you fellow people of Apologetics 4, in the last week of the quarter where people are scrambling to get grades up, balancing projects, and trying to keep our sanity. I have noticed that every morning in the car ride to school I am praying to God and listening to the radio. I am either praying about that days test or the golf match or tournament that is coming up. However one day I realized that praying in the car wasn’t something that I normally do, I began to realize that when I pray the most is when times are toughest.
This is crazy, Right? The assumption is that we pray the most when we are in the good times, but this isn’t so. We pray to God the most when we are in the bad times, when we really need God to pull through for us. However God doesn’t work like this, he doesn’t change his daily plans to benefit us. So why don’t we turn to God when we are in the good times? I think that when we are in the bad times we are seeking affirmation that God exists, that he is still there and still cares about us. This is where apologetics comes into play, if we have studied apologetics and know what we know to be true, then the bad times might not be so bad. Mainly because we don’t have to go through the phase of questioning God over and over again because we have that prior Apologetics knowledge. If we live life with a strong foundation for our belief, we can live knowing that God is always there and that things will eventually get better. Apologetics, if used in this context, gives us hope during the bad times. As for the Good times we need to work on recognizing when we are in the Good times and praise the Lord and all his glory. I think Apologetics is a necessity because it makes the bad times better or less if you prefer. It enables us to get to the Good times quicker and remember who got us there. Nicholas Murray
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I apologize for this blog post not relating to the topic of the week, but I want to talk about something that has been on my mind lately. Over the past week or two, I have been thinking of how this class is affecting my faith. At the beginning of the year, I had no clue what this course was going to be about, and it was going to be just another Bible class I sit in, waiting for class to end, and glancing at the clock every 30 seconds. During the first week, when we were talking about the structure of the course, I thought to myself that this is going to be the longest semester of my life, and I was mourning picking the class. Three months go by, and this class turned out to be not as bad as I thought it would be. I have learned something that is useful and relevant to my faith that I have never experienced in previous Bible classes. When I think about it, I started this class without knowing a single thing about apologetics to being able to talk to someone challenging my faith. Of all the topics we have learned about so far this year from Life of Jesus to Authenticity of the Bible to LGBT and Racism. I am pretty comfortable with the topics we have learned, and I would not flee a situation of someone asked me about any of those topics. I'm not saying that I am the next member of One Minute Apologist. The progression that I have had since the beginning of the year for me is crazy. So I want you guys just to see how far we have gone since the beginning of the school year and to realize the importance of this class and to keep learning and exploring apologetics more.
-Cole McKittrick Hey guys. So this week I’m going to be talking about something I’ve always struggled with: forgiveness. Forgiveness has always been hard for me, especially at school. I find myself coming to school irritable because I’m anticipating all the things people will do to annoy me. Then when people do things that annoy me, I immediately get angry and bitter. But here’s a passage I read that’s been helping me with forgiveness.
Alright guys this is a parable from Matthew 18:22 “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold was brought to him. 25 Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. 26 “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ 27 The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28 “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. 29 “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’ 30 “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31 When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32 “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33 Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ 34 In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35 “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.” So I think the analogy is pretty clear but powerful. We are the servant and God is the master. God has paid the huge debt of all our sin, and we refuse to extend that grace to others. To forgive like Christ we need to have a spirit of forgiveness like his. Jesus was getting nailed onto the cross and humiliated by people he poured love into and he still said “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34). Wow. People at school are annoying but no one’s trying to crucify me. So how do we forgive like Christ? I mean I’m not sure I know 100%. But I think a good start is to look at the grudges we hold against people in the format of the parable. If the parable had just started with one servant holding another money, it would make sense that the servant would want his payment. But when it starts with how that servant was just pardoned from a way larger debt, the servant looks like an idiot! But that servant is us (or at least just me)! We need to put forgiveness into perspective by starting with the story of the King (God) instead of the story of the servant. Morgan Williams I know this last weeks discussion topic has been awkward. Sooo I’m not gonna write about sex. Instead, I’m boutta pour out my heart and the ways that God is currently working in me. But I don’t have the answer to the final question I’m going to ask. If you’re one of those people that needs the answer. Then I wouldn’t continue reading. Just comment “nice job Linnea J”.
If I’ve still got you, here it is. I’m sure a lot of you feel this way especially going through junior year. I feel like I’m being stretched in a thousand different directions. Well, actually 6 directions. What I mean by this is I have 6 areas. SUPER IMPORTANT areas of my life that I need to pour my energy into. I’m not kidding when I say I need to. 1st is God. Of course I need to focus the 5 other areas on Him. It all should be centered on Christ. But I’m talking about my energy. It takes time and energy for me to try to build and grow in my relationship with Christ. I find prayer and worship incredibly restful. But, I have taken on duties in my faith that can be draining. Like being on the worship team at my church, volunteering to teach Sunday School, being on the student leadership team at my youth group, being our class chaplain (which I loveJ ), doing Jammers 4 Jesus (Monday morning worship sessions in the elementary music room during office hours, see ya there), and of course reading my Bible and devotions. As much as all of these things fill me because they are all truly rooted in bringing glory to God, they take energy. I’ll come back to these things at the end. 2nd is my family. I don’t even need to write a paragraph on this one, because I know you guys get it. There’s so much pressure from our parents. I try my best to make my parents proud and it can be devastating when I let them down. So, I pour myself into being the best daughter I can. I still mess up. My family is messed up. I know yours is, too. I know that that’s ok, but sometimes I work really hard to pretend it’s not messed up. I’m no Amanda in the Glass Menagerie, but I think we all try to pretend our families are perfect. That takes so much energy. 3rd is my boyfriend. Ah that guy. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna get all mushy. (but he’s the bestest). It takes a lot of emotional effort to be in a relationship. It’s so worth it. It’s worth how much energy it takes. But dang it takes a lot. 4th is my friends. Ok so I love my friends. But, wow it can be hard to add this into the mixture. Like it’s easy with my friends here at school. As for my friends outside of school, they can unintentionally get pushed to the side as time seems to fly by. I haven’t seen one of my closest friends in two months because the other 5 categories are taking so much time and energy. I rarely fight with my very best friend in the whole world, but lately arguments about how much time I’m spending with her has become our primary conflict. Fights are stressful. Stress drains. 5th is school. This class takes energy. And oh my goodness I don’t even want to talk about APUSH. You guys know how hard school can be. But, it also tends to take top priority for most. Unfortunately, school does not take top priority in my life. It takes a back seat to pretty much all the other things which is not good. My grades suffer because of that. But I can’t imagine taking energy out of any of the other areas. My homework ends up getting neglected whenever anything else needs energy. I take procrastinating to an incredibly stressful level. 6th is money. I wouldn’t even include this as something that I prioritize or as an “area of my life” like I have done with all the previously mentioned. But, I would say that it takes energy and time and it’s important. I have a job and I actually enjoy it but I can’t just push it to the side when other areas of my life become overwhelming. It takes responsibility and energy. I’m sure a lot of you struggle with being pulled in different directions. It’s stressful and makes life feel slow and overwhelming. I don’t have an answer for how to divide your energy and prioritize correctly. As you can tell, I’m trying to figure it out. The only solution that brings rest and ease has been prayer. I find that when I’m overwhelmed, I can “rant” to God about it and it turns into prayer for wisdom. I want to encourage you guys to ask God for wisdom when you don’t know the answers to stuff. Looking to Scripture is so needed, but also ask God. He wants us to ask for guidance. If the Holy Spirit is truly living inside of me, then I can lean into that when I don’t know what to do. I also want to challenge you to go listen to “God I Look To You” by Bethel Music. It’s a good song and I feel like worship is the best way to reflect on what I’ve just forced you to read so.. If you do, please comment your favorite lyric from the song so I can see who the true OGs are. Thanks for sticking with me if you got this far J Linnea Coffey The Life of Jesus . . . and Doubts
If I had started off by writing, "I have no doubt in my mind that Jesus was born, lived, died, and was resurrected" I would be lying. It even says in the book of Matthew, after Jesus started appearing to people after his resurrection, "And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted." Even after people had already seen Him with their own eyes they still doubted! I will share with you some points that have helped me strengthen my belief that Jesus Christ lived, died and rose from the dead.
http://www.apologeticspress.org/APContent.aspx?category=10&article=147&topic=228 Alright, so based on what we’ve been talking about recently I’m choosing to write on the resurrection of Jesus. I’ve always been interested in the resurrection of Jesus and how the heck it happened but I’ve never actually looked for what evidence there is. One piece of evidence that I found that I think is really cool that I’ve never seen before is the transformation of the early disciples. During Jesus’s early ministry James along with his brothers didn’t believe in Jesus (John 7:5). James suddenly changed after the resurrection when Jesus appeared to him (1 Corinthians 15:3-9). Paul is another example of one who was completely transformed by the resurrection of Jesus. Paul had been a persecutor of the church. After witnessing the risen Jesus, Paul became a proclaimer for the church. Another piece of evidence is all the post-resurrection eye witness accounts. There are multiple eyewitness accounts relating to the resurrection of Jesus. Several people had seen Jesus alive for a period of 40 days. The eyewitnesses include Mary Magdalene (John 20:10-18), the women at the tomb accompanying Mary (Matthew 28:1-10), the Roman guards (Matthew 28:4), the Eleven disciples (John 21), the two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35), a number of disciples (Matthew 28:16-20) and over five-hundred disciples (1 Corinthians 15:6), also James (1 Corinthians 15:7) and Paul (1 Corinthians 15:8-9). I know we already kinda talked about the eyewitness accounts but for me it’s interesting and good evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Sorry if this was really boring but I found these two pieces of evidence to really give me reassurance that the resurrection of Jesus happened.
Jackson Pitney Hi Guys!
So based on our class discussion this morning I thought I would talk about friendships. I kind of formatted this post differently personifying things I value in a friendship I hope you enjoy! Trust: Trust you can talk to him at any time any where. Trust allows you to be vulnerable knowing you won’t be judged and will be accepted. Trust realizes you aren’t perfect and not expecting you to be. He looks past offences. Honesty: Honesty is a real friend, she will tell you the honest truth even when it’s hard to hear, she will share her real hopes and dreams given to her by God. She opens up about her honest struggles and weaknesses because a real relationship need to be sincere and vulnerable. Honesty will speak truth into your life and encourage your hopes and dreams given to you by God. Honesty you can trust, you can’t trust somebody who is dishonest. Loyal: Loyal, she is so awesome. She is always there for you, all ways there to pick you up in hard times. She will laugh with you when it’s funny and will cry with you when it’s hard. Shes there when know else is. She is a faithful friend. Joy: She is always having a good time regardless of circumstances. Whether good or bad day she has an inner bliss and wonder from God believing and hoping for the best and realizing life's not perfect and not to take herself too seriously. “Friends come and friends go But a true friend sticks by you like family” Proverbs 18:24 These are just a few things that I value in a friendship. Friendships are hard and take work ,but a true friend is priceless. So I hope this encouraged you in some way, maybe to be a friend to someone who doesn’t or deepening your friendship with another or maybe being a better friend. By Lily Turner Yawn, this week started off slow but then gradually increased as the week went on. I really thought that this week's topic of historical evidence for Christianity was rather interesting. I really enjoyed having to research articles for evidence that the bible exists. This has really opened up my thoughts on the existence of God and my faith for him. proving that the bible is true takes some work but if you really believe in the bible then you can prove it. I also learned that you can also prove that the bible is true because of the holy spirit, Without the holy spirit the bible would basically be a text book. the bible is a big part of Christianity. By being a Christian I've learned that it is a commitment. you have to accept what you're learning you have to hear him and listen to his powerful words. Without Christ we wouldn't be anywhere right now. I became a true Christian in 9th grade. Now here is what mean by true Christian. I've known God all my life through bible stories in my early years, and I've extended my faith for God since then. Coming to Seattle Christian has opened my heart for God and it's really had a great impact on me. If i didn't go to this school i would probably lose my faith for god. I became a true Christian when I was saved during choir one day when we had a music teacher from California. She lead us in rituals and then worship. It was during the song “I surrender all to you “that I knelt on the floor and could feel the presence of the lord overcome my soul. this feeling was unexplainable it was so amazing. I am so grateful that this experience happened and I am so grateful that I can share it with all of you. I strongly encourage you all to go out there and worship Christ in any way . Thank you guys so much for reading this blog post. and enjoy this spirit week.
By Natalya Hodges Man… This technically wasn’t my week to go, but I actually wanted to touch up on the breakout chapel that I went to this week and I thought this was a good opportunity to do so. This subject doesn’t directly correlate with what we’re learning currently, but this does still relate to apologetics in some way or another. The breakout chapel this week was led by Maddy, Linnea, and Dylan and they were talking about how we could prioritize God in the 24 hours He gives us daily. One of the few topics they talked about was God’s appearance in friendships, and how we can build stronger and closer relationships. Now, I know we all have friends or relatives who aren’t Christian, and that’s totally fine. It’s not every day that one of your friends or a complete stranger will come up to you and start throwing questions at you about your faith or just start debating you. I mean, it’s quite possible but that’s not what I’m really getting at.
Everybody is different and each person needs a friend who is there to support them through everything and help them build their relationship with God. This requires a lot of trust for some people, or not. If they don’t know Him or don’t want to know Him, that is totally their decision. I love when Mrs. Fiechtner says that we won’t make that person we’re talking to Christian, but if we try, help them gain knowledge, and plant that seed in them, then we’ve done our job. Personally, knowing the person I’m talking to helps the process of them getting to understand Christ better. Opportunities to help others grow in faith are everywhere, we just need to pick the right time to jump on it. It’s rather difficult, but my challenge to you guys is to talk to a friend or whomever and ask them about their faith or anything. But be sure to be open-minded (not saying you aren’t). Not everybody will be willing to open up right away, but it’s worth a shot- especially if your relationship with that person grows too. I’m praying for everybody’s personal walk with God in this class, and that He will shape all of us into the people He intended us to be. Have a great weekend guys. - Ava Okay, so after two weeks of not doing my job, I am still doing a last-minute topic that was based on the timed write we took, but I hope it will teach us all an important lesson. In the prompts that Mrs. Fiechtner gave us there was one that really stood out to me and I think we can all apply this to ourselves. The prompt said that apologetics is mainly described as just a tool for discussions against non-believers and what else is apologetics used for besides that. For me, I think that not all of us, but some including me, think to ourselves that this class is something that we will never use beyond this class because we won’t be planning on getting in some heated discussions. So even if we don’t get in discussions with non-believers, there is such a benefit that we get from this class. Already in this short time that we’ve been in class there has been so much information that has been thrown our way and at times it can be very confusing. But since we are learning about how to defend our faith to all people, we are introduced to new concepts of Scripture that we can use to increase our own faith. This class is also a class of open discussion and I feel like we have to take advantage of that more. I think Dylan, Linnea, Morgan, Maddy and Avery do a great job of leading discussions and I feel like others should be encouraged to chime in on conversations. Discussion time gives us the ability to talk about things that we may not be all that confident in when it comes to our faith in God and it is good to get input from other people.
Apologetics is a class that can seem confusing and you wonder when you would ever use this, but it has a great purpose, but it might be a different purpose for different people. My hope for you all is that you will find your own purpose for taking this class and not think of it as a chore to walk into apologetics class, but to think as it as a new opportunity of growing closer to God in your journey of faith. In all, I guess what I’m trying to say is let the Holy Spirit guide you and listen to His commands and you will find your purpose in this class
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This blog serves as a collection of thoughts, journal entries, pictures, debates, transcribed conversations, and anything else that might help us, as well as others outside of the class, engage with the questions that arise during our apologetic explorations. Archives
March 2018
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