Jonathan Walter

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

Sebastien Braxton

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Hope Channel

08 Jesus is Different

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

Now here's your host, Joe Reeves with Inverse.

Hello, my name is Joe and welcome to Inverse.

On Inverse we love studying the Bible and we have our Bibles opened right here with friends.

And at Inverse we are studying the Bible.

If you don't know, it's not about apologizing.

It's about explaining and knowing the reasons for your faith and for your beliefs.

Christian apologetics is defending the Christian faith and answering tough questions.

So we try to ask really hard questions on this panel and see if we can make each other stumble.

And thanks for joining us wherever you're watching from.

You can read our Bible study guides on inversebible.org and you will love going to Apologetics on that website and our previous Bible studies as well.

Our programs are on hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

And so today and on this episode, we are going to read the words of Jesus and we're going to think about who he is.

And I'm going to invite Jonathan to open us with prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for the opportunity we have to study the Bible.

Thank you for how you've led in our lives, how you've led us through this program.

And in this arc that we are in right now, apologetics, we just ask that you will help us to understand why we believe what we believe or why someone should believe in Christianity.

I pray that you will bless us now and be with us through spirit in Jesus name we pray.

We are in the Gospel of John today, chapter 14.

Some of these closing moments with Jesus and his disciples and really confirming his identity with them as he shares some of these last words with them.

So we'll read from chapter 14 and Felicia will read for us.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself that where I am, there you may be also.

And where I go, you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?

Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No 1 comes to the Father except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

And from now on, you know him and have seen him.

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father, and it is sufficient for us.

Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?

The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves.

And good to read the whole chapter in your devotional time, your own study time, these words of Jesus.

And in the last few episodes of Apologetics, we've been studying about Jesus and Hinduism, Jesus and Buddhism, Jesus and Islam.

And we listen to the different world teachers and what belief systems are offered in this world, and we have to make a choice whose words we believe.

And Paul, as we read these words of Jesus, What makes Jesus different than other world religion teachers?

Other world teachers, Krishna, Muhammad, Buddha, all of them are trying to articulate, they're looking for light, they're looking for truth.

Jesus is the embodiment of that truth, that's what he claims to be.

Lewis, you know, who very often thought about these questions, he says very famously, he says, someone who says I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claims to be God, he says, This will not do.

He says, a man who is merely man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.

He would either be a lunatic or else he would be the devil of hell.

Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a madman or something else." Powerful quote.

Basically what he's ruling out Jesus just being a good moral teacher.

They don't accept him being God or the son of God necessarily or the sent from heaven, but teaching good ethics and promoting good values or moral values.

And it's hard to, if someone, you accept someone as a good moral teacher, but then they make this outrageous claim that they're God.

Like, if I had a friend who is a good person, but then that friend is like, I'm God, That sort of puts me to doubt everything else that you say, if you have that sort of illusion about yourself.

And so that's strange in how we can conclude he's a good moral teacher, but he's not what he says he is.

But the other thing it makes me think about when we ask what makes Jesus different, there is this passage in Song of Solomon, chapter 5.

And of course, this is this imagery of this woman and this man and their love relationship.

And in verse 9 of chapter 5, it says, "'What is your beloved more than another beloved "'offers among women?

"'What is your beloved more than another beloved Ophiris among women?

What is your beloved more than another that you charge us so?

And then she goes on to list all of these qualities about what makes him so different.

My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among 10, 000.

And then she ends, yay, he is altogether lovely.

1 of the things that differentiates Jesus from all of the other leaders is this invitation that we have to be in relationship with Him.

He's not simply trying to get you to do a list of good things.

He's not just trying to get you to walk and step in a certain way, which is a part of it, but He's inviting us to something so much greater.

So to think that He as Creator, as God, as powerful, is interested in your thoughts, is interested in your heart.

That definitely is a winning point compared to everyone else or all the other leaders who are just trying to get you to change your behavior.

And that's why I'm glad you started with verse 1 in John 14, because Jesus is saying, I came down from heaven.

I'm going to prepare mansions for you so that where I am there, you may be also.

07 Jesus and Islam

Now here's your host, Joe Reeves, with Inverse.

Hi, my name is Joe, and welcome to Inverse.

Inverse is a Bible study where we get into the text.

This season we are looking at apologetics.

We are considering other religions and worldviews.

We're going to be looking at a number of different scriptures.

We're going to be thinking about what other people bring, what we can find common with them, and how the Christian religion challenges them or calls them to something different.

Studying all these things today with my friend Jonathan.

So we're at the table and you're the other chair at the table and we're so glad for that.

And as we journey through this, we've been learning a lot from each other about the Bible, about Christianity, about Jesus, the very basics of our belief system.

Leave a comment on YouTube, Facebook, or wherever you're at and ask the tough questions and engage with us and with each other.

But as we open the scriptures today, we will begin with prayer, as our acknowledgement that we need help from God.

Father, we are so privileged to get to know you.

We are in awe of the fact that although you're so great, you still invite us to know more about you and your son, Jesus Christ, who is equal with the Father.

We ask for understanding and for clarity and for hearts humble enough to receive who you are.

Bless our study together in your name I pray, amen.

You can read our Bible study guides online at inversebible.org.

We have lots of material there and some of it we go through on the programs and there's some things more in depth there in our publication.

And we have many past Bible studies that are very exciting, maybe answering questions that you've thought about.

All of our past episodes are there at hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

And the verse that we are looking at today is in Deuteronomy chapter 6.

And addressing 1 of the questions that our friends, our brothers and sisters from the Islamic faith have questions about Christianity right away.

So let's see what the Bible says about that.

In Deuteronomy chapter 6 and verses 4 through 9.

Hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength.

And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart.

You shall teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets before your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." Very pivotal passage in the Old Testament for the Jewish religion, culture, tradition.

And Jonathan, what does this passage tell us about the nature of God?

It's a fascinating passage as many passages in the Old Testament kind of allude to this.

And that is the fact that we hear, if we look at the grammar in the original language, something interesting takes place here.

So when you see the word the Lord in the Old Testament, that is actually a replacement because the Hebrew word that is there is the name for God.

It's Yahweh or YHWH if you want to put it that way and and because the the in the Hebrew I guess religious tradition they considered the name of God unspeakable because it is so holy so they replaced it with Adonai which means Lord.

So often when you see a Lord staying there it's it really is the name of God that is mentioned there in the original language which is in singular Yahweh the Lord our God.

Now the word that's used here is in Hebrew is Elohim, which is a plural form for God.

So we see singular and plural, a singular and a plural form of God being used.

So that brings up a lot of questions, because if God is 1, what does that oneness communicate?

Is it does it mean he's 1 God or in terms of how many gods there are, or what does it mean?

And as Bible-believing Christians, our understanding is that there is here an allusion to the fact that God is unity and that he's considered 1 God, yet there is a plurality within the Godhead that is hard to comprehend.

I just recently had a discussion with someone who called me, a random person who called me where I work and was trying to discuss this with me.

And I was like, listen, like there is, there are certain illustrations you can use to try to understand it, but there is an element of mystery around what some call the Trinity or the plurality within the Godhead.

And so this this verse is beautiful because it brings out that reality about God.

And this this verse brings out something that we can really appreciate about our Islamic brothers and sisters in that many other religions that we have studied so far have many different gods that are being worshipped and they have many different idols Islam came into the scene in the sixth century was it and from the teachings of Muhammad and his leadership.

These idols cannot hear and cannot see and cannot help you.

And there's only 1 God and the Lord is 1.

And so that does bring a certain breath of fresh air when you've been surrounded by idolatry and a multiplicity of gods.

However, they do stumble on the Christian description of God and that becomes a challenge.

In the human sense, we are 1 in being and 1 in person.

But the way as Jonathan pointed out, the Bible describes God as 1 in being, but 3 in person.

And to the natural mind, to the human mind, that seems impossible.

But this is the mystery that scripture presents.

And it is a spiritual thing that has to be spiritually discerned as the Bible says.

I'd like us to walk through some of the scriptures and we'll get the number 3 in the New Testament for sure.

But are there any other verses from the Old Testament that help us understand that there's some complexity to the nature of God.

1 scripture that I like to go to is actually in Genesis.

And that is, there's a couple of, if I can, if I may, if we start in Genesis chapter 1 real quick, just 1 phrase here in verse 26.

It says, then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.

In the image of God, he created him male and female.

So you have the play on words, on singular and plurality in the creation, in the image of God, when God created human beings.

In a way, He's saying that, you know, man and woman are, yes, they're both human, but they're together, they are the image of God.

So there's a oneness and a plurality even within humanity.

Yes, and then that's, and there's a beautiful coming together in chapter 2 of Genesis, when God, in God brings marriage into the picture.

Paul Samuel

06 Jesus and Buddhism

Glad to be here together to discuss some things.

We've been looking at apologetics this quarter.

You can find all of our Bible study written out.

You can go deeper than what we have time to on the program if you go to inversebible.org.

There's past studies there, but our current 1 is apologetics.

And we are looking at the reasons for Christianity, the reasons to believe.

And you can see all of our programs at hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

So we're glad to continue our discussion of world religions, of Christianity and why I should believe, what are the reasons?

We're looking at another story of Jesus, but we will begin with prayer as always.

We want the Holy spirit to guide us today.

Heavenly father, we thank you that you are the God who created the universe and yet cares about us individually everyone, and that you are willing to reveal yourself to us as we step into faith.

And so I pray that you will increase and strengthen our faith, that you will open our hearts and minds to understand your word, and you will speak to us, not just here, but those listening and watching wherever they are.

We have considered during this season of Inverse as we've studied apologetics, that all the different religions of the world wrestle with the same or similar questions, questions about suffering, about destiny, about origin, and there's different answers offered by different teachers.

Today's episode is Jesus and Buddhism, and we are looking at a story of Jesus from the Gospel of John, Chapter 9, where these questions are addressed about suffering, about origin, many of the same questions that Buddha wrestled with some centuries before.

Maybe before you read the passage, Sebastian.

You can tell us about Buddha and his palace and his struggles.

So Siddhartha Buddha, or Guatemala was actually his name.

But Siddhartha Guatemala was basically living in a palace.

He was a prince, he was very comfortable.

And there was a sort of, not like a prophecy, but basically saying you have to keep him from anything outside the palace.

So life, pleasure, money, comfort, food, he had everything.

And 1 day he ends up actually going out into the world and he encounters suffering.

And from that moment in time, he basically saw no meaning in his palace life.

And he essentially went on a journey to figure out how to end suffering.

And through that process, he came up with things of self-discipline, of compassion, et cetera, et cetera, which became like the dharma, the way that it goes.

And essentially, to summarize there at the end, he gets the title Buddha, which means the awakened 1.

So there's a problem, the problem is suffering.

He's on a journey, he's searching for enlightenment.

Well, how to figure out how to get rid of suffering and his solution without letting too much out of the bag is That you need to detach from caring about the things of this world So meanwhile Jesus enters this world.

There's the same problems there's problems of suffering and pain and other teachers Buddha was before Jesus some centuries before, and attempting to offer certain answers.

Jesus is here on earth in John chapter 9.

And let's see what we discover in this story from John chapter 9.

Now, as Jesus passed by, he saw a man who was blind from his birth.

And his disciples asked him saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?

Jesus answered, neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

I must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.

When he had said these things, he spat on the ground and made clay with the saliva.

And he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay.

And he said to him, go, wash in the pool of Siloam, which is translated, scent.

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

Now we need to know that the worldview of these people in this story, these Jewish people, is very similar to some of the Hindu thinking.

They also thought that if a man is born blind, that it must be because Either he sinned or his parents sinned.

And so he is suffering maybe a karma, so to speak.

And they want Jesus to affirm this worldview.

Jesus is not ascribing guilt to any previous birth, to any previous existence.

For instance, I'll read to you from Hindu scriptures, which the Buddha used.

It says, accordingly, those who are of pleasant conduct here the prospect is indeed that they will enter a pleasant womb, either the womb of a Brahman, the priestly class, or the womb of a Kshatriya, the warrior class or the royal class, or the womb of a Vaisya, which is a professional business class person.

But those who are of stinking conduct here, the prospect is indeed that they will enter a stinking womb of a dog or the womb of a swine or a womb of an outcast.

And when The way Jesus responds to the question, did this man sin, did his parents sin?

Jesus refuses to ascribe any inherited guilt.

Jesus says, this is so that God will be glorified in this person.

Diametrically different from either the Jewish worldview or the prevailing Buddhist or Hindu worldview at the time.

Where does this man's blindness come from?

05 Jesus and Hinduism

Coming to you from Silver Spring, Maryland, Welcome to Inverse, a Bible-based conversation on life principles, contemporary issues, and thought-provoking perspectives.

My name is Joe and we at Inverse study the Bible with friends at a table and with you.

And we're so excited that you've joined us today.

We're very glad to have you here, Felicia.

And we've been studying apologetics this season.

We've been learning as we've prepared for this, and these programs aren't scripted, but we do study and prepare, and then we have a great conversation and so apologetics what we've done for this is episode number 5 what what have you learned so far.

1 that apologetics does not mean you're apologizing for anything, but it means making a defense, giving answers as to why you believe what you believe, but knowing how to communicate in such a way with other people who have never heard the gospel, have never heard the name of Jesus, and knowing how to share that in a way that resonates with them, that is not in a dogmatic kind of way, but an attractive thing.

And so that's 1 thing that we've covered about apologetics.

It's also paying attention to getting an interest in the ideas out there, the beliefs of other people out there, knowing a little bit about the fears and hopes and desires of people, And that helps us respond with the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the medicine where the need is.

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Presenter

Jonathan Walter

All Recordings

08 Jesus is Different

28m

07 Jesus and Islam

29m

06 Jesus and Buddhism

29m

05 Jesus and Hinduism

29m

04 The Problem of Evil

29m

03 Divine Design

29m

02 Climbing Mars Hill

29m

12 Destructive Cycles

28m

11 Recommitment

28m

10 A Place of Refuge

28m

09 Caleb’s Inheritance

29m

08 The Day the Sun Stood Still

29m

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