Can You Defend Your Faith?

It has been estimated that up to 80% of children who are brought up in Christian homes will lose their faith before the 1st year of college. New research shows that most kids give up their faith years before college.

WHY!

Research shows that most children are not being taught Biblical apologetics (evidence which supports the reliability of the Bible).

Can you give logical reasons for why to believe?
Are you prepared to defend claims of God’s existence
or the reliability of the Bible?
Do you have evidence to share with others?
Is there logical evidence to support the Bible’s reliability?

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Actually there is plenty of logical evidence

as the articles below will show.

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1) See How Scientific Evidence - Historical Evidence -

Archaeological Evidence and much more

drastically support the Reliability of the Bible.

Select:

"Evidence for Biblical Reliability"

2) See Scientific Evidence for the Origin of Life,

Origin of the Species, Origin of Man,

Origin of the Universe, and the

Origin of Fossils and Rock Layers.

Select:

"Creative Views of Science -
Origins Lecture"
and
"Comparison of Origins Theories" -
A Summary

3) See How Scientific Evidence explains Biblical and Secular History as
Creation, Noah’s Ark and the Flood, Babel, Cavemen,
Dinosaurs, Early Civilizations and much more.

Select:

"Man’s Early History"
and
"How Much Time?"

Questions For Christians

QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS


1) What does it mean to you to be a Christian?
2) Is it important to be a Christian? Why?
3) What is a Christian’s purpose in life?
4) Does being a Christian affect your decisions? How?
5) How strong is your faith? Do you have doubts?
6) Do you let others know you are a Christian?
7) How do you show others that you are a Christian?
8) How do you approach non-Christians about Christianity?
9) Are you prepared to witness your faith in the gospel and why you believe in God and the Bible?
10) How do you convince others that the Bible is reliable, God exist, and the gospel is true?
11) Do you understand the entire gospel - from the origin of sin to its redemption through Christ?
12) Do you truly believe that the entire Bible is reliable and its stories are true?
13) Is it important to believe that the entire Bible is reliable including our origins and man’s early history as recorded in the first eleven chapters in Genesis? Why?
14) Do you believe the following events actually occurred as part of our history as recorded in the Bible or were such events just symbolic?
A) The creation story, Adam’s rib, Adam sin and God’s resultant curse, Cain and Able, Noah and his family, the ark and its animals, a world-wide flood, the rainbow, the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of families from Babel
B) Jesus Christ’s spiritual conception, birth story, ministry, miracles, death for our sins, bodily resurrection, ascension and promise to return
15) Do you believe that in the beginning:
A) God created all things in six literal days or in billions of years?
B) God created things in the order it is recorded in Genesis (as plants before the sun, and
birds before reptiles)?
C) God created all "kinds" of creatures as complete kinds or did he allow creatures to evolve from one kind to another?
16) Should a Christian trust the words of God in the Bible or the contradictory theories of man?
17) As a Christian does it really matter what you believe regarding our origins and early history?
18) Do you believe that heaven and hell will be real places?
19) If you died today, what do you believe would happen to your soul?
20) If life does not just cease (as an atheist must believe) are you prepared to enjoy heaven or are you willing to accept the eternal consequences of hell?

My Walk With God - Continued

My Walk With God - Continued
How God Is Guiding My Ministry
by Brooks A. Harris

As I look back on my life I can now see many times where God has led me and protected me for His purpose. I truly believe He has provided Guardian Angels for me at several points in my journey called life. I believe that God created me with a purpose. He has had a plan for me for a long time, but I am just now beginning to see parts of His plan. The following paragraphs will summarize how I see God’s involvement in my past.

I was a shy child growing up. So I now see how God used my ten years in the Boy Scouts to teach me a sense of accomplishment, self worth, and gave me experiences in team building and leadership. He also used my four years in a military high school, Castle Heights Military Academy, to teach me communication skills, teamwork and leadership skills.

When I graduated from Southern College of Optometry in 1985 and began my optometric practice in Ripley, TN, I had to begin talking to local groups to advertise my name and professional skills. I learned that I enjoyed lecturing on a subject in which I was very familiar.

I had attended church pretty regularly as a child, but only occasionally during my college years. My wife and I joined a church in 1985 and have attended pretty regularly ever since. In about 1997 I asked God to help me read His word, the Bible, more regularly. About two weeks later someone asked for a volunteer to teach the Jr/Sr High Sunday School Class. I had never taught before, but I knew I enjoyed working with kids and I wanted to learn more so I said OK. I found out quickly that when you teach you really have to study and learn the information to be ready to teach it to others.

Now here is the interesting part. Although I had the above experiences in church, I still had doubt in God’s existence. I wanted to believe but I was not absolutely sure. I believed that the Bible was a good instruction manual and good to teach from, but due to my scientific background and other factors in my past, I did not know if God truly existed. Eventually He used my doubt to make me research, and boy did I research.

In 1999 I began reading many creation science materials and quickly realized that science drastically supports the creation story as recorded in Genesis, but true scientific findings cause many problems for the theory of Darwinian evolution. It made me realize that all the stories in Genesis were true history and not just symbolic tales. Further studies in science, history, archaeology and reading study Bible comments, made me realize I could trust the entire Bible.

I began writing about what I had learned. Before too long I had a 16 chapter book nearly ready to publish, but before I could, my computer crashed three times. After about two years of writing and the third crash I decided to not do a book. I took it as a sign from God as if He was telling me that a book was not what He had in mind for me. So instead I turned all the writings into individual handouts. I gave several people varying handouts over the next few years (and I still do). After adding handouts from other people I finally put a collection of all my handouts into notebooks so people could borrow and read what they wanted. I made about fifty notebooks but only have a few left.

In January of 2008 I purchased several books on creation science, history, and Christian questions and answers and set up a catalogued library for people to check out. It is not used much but comes in handy when someone is really interested in a certain subject. I also purchased several small Bibles, books, and booklets to give away for free to interested people. My favorite book to give away is a "365 Bedtime Bible Stories" book for children and their parents to read.

In the spring of 2008 I tried to organize a small group of Christian men who were interested in sharing the word of God. I called the group CHRIST PALS which stood for "Christians Helping to Restore the Importance of Scriptural Teachings by Providing Affordable Literature and Scripture." We have met once but I anticipate future meetings.

I started giving lectures on scientific evidence for creation in about 2000. I’ve only given about ten so far but again I found that I really enjoy talking to others about subjects which I really understand. In the fall of 2008 a Baptist pastor asked me to speak in December. He said that their church had power point capabilities so I began playing with power point on my computer for the first time. After well over 100 hours of preparation I finally was able to give my first power point presentation. God was guiding me to do several things I had never done and never would have believed I would do.

In the winter of 2009 God led me to research and write an article entitled "Evidence For Biblical Reliability." This took a few months to finish. This article, compiled from several sources, was designed to show multiple evidences for the truth of the Bible. I used the acronym SHAPES to stand for shaping your acceptance of the Bible by studying the SHAPES of Biblical Reliability. These are evidence from Science, History, Archaeology, Prophecy, Epistles/Manuscript preservation and Structure & Statistics. I researched several web sites and found some of the best and most concise articles which demonstrate how reliable the Bible truly is. In the article I listed several web sites, web articles and even books for more information.

In January of 2009 I mentioned to my daughter’s boyfriend that it would be neat to get this article and other articles on the internet. So in order to share my articles he set me up with a blog site: http://biblicalreliability.blogspot.com. I did not even know what a blog site was at that time. I did nothing with it until May of 2009 when I entered about 55 of my articles including "Evidence For Biblical Reliability." I then felt called to get this information to people, so He led me to begin advertising with flyers, card, mailings, etc.

So this is where I am at this time. I truly believe that all along it has been God’s plan for me to show as many people as possible that the Bible is very reliable and should be trusted. I am still trying to listen to the will of God. I only wonder what He has in store for me in the near and distant future.

The Parent's Role

The Parent’s Role of Preparing
Children for a Relationship With God

A parent is to show a child that the parent is in charge and should be respected. The parent sets the rules and if the rules are broken, the child will be disciplined and have to suffer the consequences of their actions. The parent is also to show love, mercy, compassion, understanding and forgiveness. The parent should always communicate with the child after they calm down - talk about rules, consequences and how to avoid consequences. The parent is also to stress to their child that they still love them. In this way the child will learn to love and respect their parent.

Later in life the child will see how God has rules and set parameters. The child will know to respect God and obey His rules. The child will also realize that if these rules are not obeyed, they may have to suffer consequences. If they were forgiven and loved by their parent, they will understand that God still loves and forgives them. If the child was taught how to communicate with their parent, they will be better prepared to communicate with God through prayer, reading or hearing His word, and meditating on what they read or heard. God stresses to His children that He loves them. In this way the child will learn to love and respect God.

Children are God’s gift to parents, and parents are to be good examples to their children. To be good parents and an early example of God to their children, they must also communicate with God. It is the parent’s responsibility to prepare children for a relationship with God.