What makes us so sure Jesus is who He claimed to be?

<p>What makes us so sure Jesus is who He claimed to be?</p>

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Hope Channel

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

Sebastien Braxton

Felecia Lee

Joe Reeves

Paul Samuel

01 Why Apologetics?

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 I am your host for Inverse.

This is a Bible study and I am here with friends today.

You know, stranger to those that have been with Inverse for a while, Felicia.

Paul, thank you for joining us on this great topic of apologetics and joining the Inverse program.

I had to personally escort him off the premises.

We are recovering from missing him, but I know he is doing great ministry at the Adventist Review, and he has prepared us all, and so we are continuing this great Bible study of Inverse.

We pray, we open our Bibles, we study, we argue, and- We learn together.

So this topic that we are looking at now, beginning with this episode is apologetics and this is inverse.

We go into the Bible and this is our publication is online.

And all of our past programs, our many Bible studies we've done over the years at hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

But we have a new challenge with this episode beginning with apologetics.

Sebastian, Is that a class on teaching me how to apologize?

Which, Joe, I don't know if you would pass, but anyway, let me stop teasing.

But yeah, no, apologetics is essentially the area of Christian teaching that is really about giving an answer.

Some people will use the word to protect kind of what we believe or to answer arguments.

But essentially the word apologetics comes from the Greek word apologia, which basically means to answer, right?

So many times when individuals bring difficult questions, they're not necessarily born with the assumptions about the world that the Christian worldview presents, they're gonna bring a certain question based on that lack of assumption or understanding.

And the Bible encourages us to have an answer, to be ready always.

And so that's really what apologetics is, so that you can remove the barriers for the person to come to Jesus.

Because a lot of times, once you remove that question, Jesus becomes attractive as he truly is.

And that's really the goal of apologetics.

So Paul, why do you think, why should we study apologetics?

Peter, for instance, you know, on the Day of Pentecost, he stands up, people are wondering, what is it, what are we witnessing?

And Peter says, I have stood, he stands up to say, I'm giving a response, I'm giving an answer.

And this is the work of the disciples in the beginning.

They are giving a response first to Jews, then to Greeks, people around the world.

Following Jesus involves giving an answer for our faith.

People have questions, people encounter life, and giving answers based on the gospel is a calling, part of following Jesus as a disciple.

Amen, so should we just leave that for the pastors to take care of and the experts?

Or is this something that every believer should have some level of interest in?

You know, at first it feels like, you know, we should leave it to, you know, the professionals, the experts, the pastors.

There are other views who can relate, but I really thought apologetics had to do with apologizing on behalf of Christianity to everyone else about how- Thank you for being vulnerable.

Honestly, it wasn't until a few years ago, I kept hearing apologetics.

I'm like, okay, let me find out what this is about.

But there's a quote by Charles Spurgeon that helped me to understand apologetics a little bit more.

And the quote says, have you ever heard of a lion defending itself?

All you need to do is set the line loose and it will defend itself.

And he compares the line to the word of God, and it is setting that line free.

Not that the line is going to destroy and kill, I mean, it can, but his main thing is the word of God, truth, And when we share who Jesus is and we uplift that light, it does all of its work.

You don't have to tell a crooked stick that it's crooked or show people that it's crooked.

All you need to do is lay a straight stick down next to it and people will be able to tell that it's crooked.

And so when it comes to letting this lion lose or setting down a crooked stick, all of us have that opportunity and that delight to share and to answer and tell other people about Jesus.

It's like if you're married, You're eager to tell people about your spouse or your significant other.

It's giving other people a chance for you to talk about the 1 who you love.

Well, that would be the story that we're looking at today from the Bible, a story from the Old Testament of somebody who was able to interact and engage with somebody from a completely different worldview.

So before we open the scriptures, we pray and we need the Holy Spirit.

Our Father, we are so grateful, Lord, for the privilege of life.

We're grateful for those who are joining us online on whatever platform as we study your word today.

We pray for the sweet, sweet spirit of Jesus to rest upon our conversation, to be in our thoughts and our understanding.

We love you and thank you for these gifts and we offer this prayer from our hearts in Jesus' name.

We are thinking about this story of Solomon.

And he has a visitor that comes from quite some distance.

I'm wondering if you can read for us, Paul.

This is 1 Kings 10, and the first 4 or 5 verses, and then maybe we'll take a pause after that.

Jonathan Walter

02 Climbing Mars Hill

This is a Bible study with friends where we are studying the Bible, challenging topics, good topics.

You can see all of our past Bible studies at inversebible.org today we are looking at apologetics, episode number 2 of this season.

And you can see all of our past seasons on hopetv.org forward slash inverse.

And we are excited to dive into the Word with you, wherever you are watching from.

And I will ask Jonathan to pray for us as we open the word today.

Heavenly Father, we are so grateful for the opportunity to study together here in the studio, but also with those who are watching and joining us from wherever they are.

We ask that your spirit will speak to our hearts and teach us and guide us and help us as we focus on your word, as we learn what you try to teach us.

So we thank you and we pray all these things in the name of Jesus, amen.

Apologetics, we learned in the last episode, it is not learning how to apologize, but it is learning how to give a defense of one's belief.

Christian apologetics is the study of answering difficult questions about Christianity, the Christian worldview, and giving a defense for it.

And so we have many opportunities for that in our own world today.

And we hope as we study these stories today and this season, that you are digging down into the foundations of your own faith and thinking about why am I a believer?

We are going into the story from Acts 17.

Today, a story of Paul in Athens, an epic narrative of him engaging with philosophers and foreigners and people from different world views and let's see what lessons we can learn.

Sebastian will read for us from Acts 17 and starting in verse 16.

Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw that the city was given over to idols.

Therefore, he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshippers and in the marketplace daily with those who happened to be there.

Then certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him.

And some said, what does this babbler want to say?

Others said, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods, because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.

And they took him and brought him to the Areopagus, saying, may we know what this new doctrine is of which you speak?

For you are bringing some strange things to our ears.

Therefore we want to know what these things mean.

For all the Athenians and the foreigners who were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing." Okay.

You get the sense here that there's some sort of showdown that's getting ready to take place between these different ideas and they're wanting to hear from Paul and they know that he is a speaker and there's Paul in the Bible and there's Paul at the table.

Can you tell us a little bit about the setting here in Athens and who is he speaking to?

These are people who believe God is way out there.

God's created stuff, but he's unconcerned with creation and God is far away.

The Stoics on the other hand, they see God everywhere.

They believe pleasure is the ultimate reason to live, even in the face of death, even in the face of pain.

They want as much as possible to feel pleasure and reduce pain as much as possible.

The Stoics, on the other hand, they're running the other direction.

They want to be, sort of, you know, grit their teeth through pain and endure it and kind of stick with it.

2 sort of opposite ways of looking at life.

The other God is near and everywhere and in everything.

One's very focused on feelings and pleasure.

One's very focused on discipline and thinking.

So 2 kind of polar ways of relating to life.

Are these philosophies that we have in our world today?

I mean, I think if you if you look on social media right now, you'll see a lot of Stoic post in this philosophy kind of reviving again My daughter my oldest is now a teenager.

And so she's getting into all the lingo of saying, oh yeah, this is so Sigma, whatever, whatever.

Because I had to learn it, right, as a parent.

And what ends up happening is you're talking about the alpha male, the beta male, right?

And then there's the sigma, and it's like, oh, he's not bothered, he stays focused on his task, he goes to work even if the girl's like, oh, you should come over, I really miss you.

No, I gotta stay focused, I gotta finish my job.

And so now something is sigma is kind of like this thing you can't really bother, you can't really disturb.

And it's another way to say like, hey, that's cool, that's really nice, it's attractive, whatever.

And so, you can even see some of this language seeping into just modern lingo and slang, which is all a stoic philosophy is like, oh, the man who is no longer moved by pleasure of a woman or is not moved by the attraction of marriage or a relationship, like, no, he's got goals, he's got determinations, he grits through it, he denies himself comforts of a woman, he denies himself comforts of community.

He must always pursue virtue in all cases and situations.

And you're like, I mean, I kind of agree with what you're saying, but you can obviously see the righteousness by works that comes up in that, and the self-righteousness that can be built on that, and that's anti-Jesus for sure.

This is so fascinating, because of course popular culture has the other side of it as well with the Epicureans.

What have you seen on social media and popular culture?

And so it's the idea, YOLO, go do whatever is fun, make the best of it, You know, like this is your last day.

And it's about the thrill, the extreme, the fun, all of it.

And so that's in contrast to the, you call it sigma?

03 Divine Design

04 The Problem of Evil

Hello, my name is Joe, and welcome to Inverse Bible Study, where we get into the verse and we study the Bible together.

And we are studying this season about apologetics and diving into 1 of the most difficult and common questions today about suffering about the problem of evil and so glad you could join us so glad I have friends here at the table with me Sebastian welcome.

Aloha glad you're here for the show is back I Joe you're here and Jonathan still here.

Haha yes, you know with this group we never know what's going to come, but it's always or usually good.

We are glad to be here at this table and ask about the problem of suffering and where does it come from and what does it mean about God and why is there Evil in this world.

Yeah, let's pray Heavenly Father we are so grateful for the privilege of life and the privilege of being able to study your Word, especially as we turn our minds to this topic, a defense for God in light of the evil that exists in this world.

And evil is 1 of the things, Lord, that is most undeniable about what the word of God teaches us.

So we pray, Lord, that you would guide our conversation, be with our thoughts and our understanding.

And we pray with David that you would open our eyes, that we may behold wondrous things from your law.

You know, it's hard to imagine the Bible without the book of Job.

It is defining, it creates orientation to the whole canon of scripture, I think.

And so this story is hopefully 1 that's familiar and 1 that we should understand well and see new depth to.

We're going to start in the first verse of the book of Job and understand this story and what it tells us about our own stories.

There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job and that man was blameless and upright and 1 who feared God and shunned evil And 7 sons and 3 daughters were born to him.

Also, his possessions were 7, 000 sheep, 3, 000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large household.

So that this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

And his sons would go and feast in their houses each on his appointed day, and would send and invite their 3 sisters to eat and drink with them.

So it was when the days of feasting had run their course that Job would send and sanctify them, and he would rise early in the morning and offer burnt offerings according to the number of them all.

For Job said, it may be that my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.

Thus Job did regularly." Smooth sailing so far.

Any observations you want to make about the life of Job, about his faith?

The story is an interesting story if you know the whole book.

We do believe that it's an actual real story, not some kind of allegory, but we think it was, you know, before Abraham, and that he was 1 of those individuals who had that faith in God, maybe passed down throughout his family, from, you know, from the descendants of Noah.

And I think that's always a good thing to see.

You see he was blameless and upright, 1 who feared God and shunned evil.

Something that is not easy to do today, and something that was never easy to do.

And so I think that sets the stage to the rest of the story.

But just so we know, Time-wise, we think it was probably in the third millennia before Christ, around that time.

Okay, so 1 of the earliest narratives or biographies.

Yes, yes, definitely before Moses, before Israelites and Abraham.

And if you consider some of the aspects of Job are, you know, first mentions this character, right?

Then you see the fact that of his family, so we understand that in the Bible, having children was a sign of blessing, the fact that you were barren was a negative thing, it meant like God's blessing was not upon you, but he has 10 children.

Then you go to the fact that he was wealthy, right?

500 yoke of oxen in verse 3, he has 500 female donkeys and a very large household, so that's all his servants.

Then you see his reputation, he was, this man was the greatest of all the people of the East.

And then you go down to verse 5, and it says that he was a faithful priest of his home.

And then at the end, anybody can be holy for a phase, right?

You can get all 5 of those things correct for like a day, maybe a couple weeks, but then it ends by saying, thus Job did regularly.

And I love the fact that 1 Christian author says that a changed life is a great miracle, but a consistent 1 is another great miracle.

And so people can be great for a moment, but Joe, we're looking at somebody here that, if I told you this is how the story started, you would not think this book is 42 chapters.

You'd be thinking, hey, this brother right here took the gospel to all of his area, brought all these people to God.

And it's interesting for us that on a topic of apologetics on the problem of evil, we're starting with a man's life who is basically unparalleled to what we see today.

Yeah, Job's story kind of reminds me of the Genesis story in a way.

The book of Genesis starts off with everything just beautiful and prospers, and then the devil comes in and then messes everything up.

And so the story starts out where he just prospers.

Like how could anything go wrong in this story until the accuser steps in?

It would be nice if we could end the story there.

I mean, that's what I want my life to be.

Don't worry, Sebastian, you're not there yet.

Just keeping my brother in the place of humility and constant growth in Christ, amen.

Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them.

And The Lord said to Satan, from where do you come?

So Satan answered the Lord and said, from going to and fro on the earth and from walking back and forth on it.

Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, 1 who fears God and shuns evil?

So Satan answered the Lord and said, Does Job fear God for nothing?

Have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side?

You have blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land.

But now stretch out your hand and touch all that he has and he will surely curse you to your face The Lord said to Satan behold Satan all behold all that He has is in your power only do not lay a hand on his person So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

So suddenly the camera that was pointed to earth and to Job and his family is now pointed to heaven.

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.

Uh-huh, and in episode 2, we looked at a story of Paul doing that when he was in Athens and he perceived their thoughts, their beliefs, and he addressed them.

He even quoted from some of their own authors.

Anything else you're picking up this season?

I think just a reminder that, you know, the word that we said it comes from apologia, obviously in that word is the root word logos, right?

And the idea of Christianity through apologetics shows us that it appeals not just to the heart, but to the mind.

That you don't have to check out your brain to be a Christian.

That you can be a reasonable, rational person and still believe in God, which we brought up that Richard Dawkins quote.

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Series

InVerse 1st Quarter 2026: Apologetics

08 Jesus is Different

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 Why Apologetics?

28m

02 Climbing Mars Hill

29m

03 Divine Design

29m

04 The Problem of Evil

29m

05 Jesus and Hinduism

29m

06 Jesus and Buddhism

29m

07 Jesus and Islam

29m

08 Jesus is Different

28m

Sound Doctrine