Here’s the final examination for students in this semester’s on-campus section of 28700 Christian Apologetics. My goal in this class is never for students merely to regurgitate information. I want to equip students to recognize inadequate worldviews in a variety of cultural artifacts and to engage these inadequate worldviews with gospel-centered apologetics. That’s why this […]
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Apologetics: Why Should I Trust the Bible? Interview
Here’s an interview from a recent conversation that I had with my friend Jared Kennedy. The topic of our discussion was my new book Why Should I Trust the Bible? You can listen to the interview here.
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Apologetics: Which Canon Contains the Right Books?
Believing What Jesus Believed About the Old Testament Canon Different communities of people who call themselves Christians use different Old Testaments. Here’s what I mean: Everyone agrees about thirty-nine of the texts in the Old Testament, but—if you attended Mass in a Roman Catholic congregation this weekend—the Old Testament readings would come from a canon […]
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Church History: The True Story of St. Patrick
This week, in the year AD 461, Patrick of Ireland passed away. Ever since the early seventeenth century, churches have designated March 17 as St. Patrick’s Day. Prohibitions on feasting during the season of Lent were traditionally lifted on this day, and green had been associated with Ireland at least as early as the seventeenth […]
[Read More...]Apologetics: Free Apologetics Curriculum and a Book about Why the Bible Can Be Trusted
Have you ever been asked why you believe the Bible is true? It might be that you’ve even asked yourself that question at some point. It’s a question that I’ve asked too! And it’s the question that I set out to answer in Why Should I Trust the Bible? The purpose of this book is simple: […]
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Family Ministry: What Should We Do with Children in Community Groups?
One question that I frequently receive from churches runs something like this: “There are so many children in our community groups! We want to do something with them, but we can’t figure out what to do. Right now, groups are just hiring babysitters, but there’s got to be a better way. What do we do […]
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Apologetics: Did Cornelius Van Til Really Teach that Non-Christians Know Nothing?
I am not a Van Tilian presuppositionalist, though I am sympathetic with certain aspects of Cornelius Van Til’s approach. Over the past few years, I have—to the best of my knowledge—read every book and syllabus that Van Til wrote related to apologetics. Even after reading several thousand pages of Cornelius Van Til’s writings, I do […]
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Apologetics: Natural Theology, Evidential Apologetics, and Thomas Aquinas in Stanley Hauerwas’s Gifford Lectures
I recently finished reading With the Grain of the Universe: The Church’s Witness and Natural Theology, the published text of Stanley Hauerwas’s 2001 Gifford Lectures at the University of St. Andrews. In one sense, this particular iteration of the Gifford Lectures was a failure—but it can hardly be regarded as an authentic failure, because the […]
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Family Ministry: Leaving Behind the One-Eared Mickey Mouse Model of Youth Ministry
In the late 1980s, one student minister depicted the relationship between his ministry and the rest of his congregation as a “one-eared Mickey Mouse.” To understand this analogy, imagine with me the most basic depiction of Mickey Mouse in three circles—the two smaller circles represent his ears, while the larger circle is his head. Now, […]
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History: Five Points from a Protestant Reformer to Remember on Your Birthday
I recently ran across these words about birthdays in The Complete Psalter, a commentary penned in the sixteenth century by a little-known German Protestant named Nikolaus Selneccer. In his exposition of Psalm 139, Selneccer saw this song of David as a text that legitimates the celebration of one’s birthday. Along the way, Selneccer also listed […]
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Family Ministry: Pushing Past Conventional Youth Ministry
“This is Wednesday night youth group. We don’t do Bibles here,” the student said to me on my first night in youth ministry—and I recognized this might be far more difficult than I had ever imagined.
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Family Ministry: Pursuing Diversity in Your Church
Pursuing the Discipline of Diversity “It gets you out of your solitary conceit.” That’s how C.S. Lewis described the impact of worshiping and cultivating Christian community alongside people who are different from us. And yet, in too many local churches, authentic diversity in which people from dissimilar sociocultural and ethnic backgrounds pursue Christ together remains […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Are the Stories of Jesus Borrowed from Pagan Parallels to Christianity? + “We Didn’t Start the Fire” (Billy Joel)
This week’s podcast includes pagan parallels to Christianity, the Piano Man, and the most daring giveaway ever attempted on any human podcast. Paganism and plagiarism provide the theme for the first half. Even in ancient times, Roman philosophers claimed that Christians had “used pagan myths in fabricating the story of a virgin conception.” So is […]
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Family Ministry: Who Is Responsible for the Discipleship of Your Children?
Discipleship is Too Important to Hand Over to Specialists There are some tasks so significant that they can’t be surrendered to someone else. Taking your spouse on a date, for example. Think of it this way: Suppose I called my wife this afternoon and announced, “Honey, guess what? Remember how you asked about a date […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Three Chords Goes to the Movies: Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
On May 25, 1977, a young filmmaker named George Lucas released a space fantasy that he had simply titled Star Wars. Over the past four decades, this story has developed into one of the most influential cultural phenomena of the modern era. Now, with the release of Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, the saga that began In 1977 has drawn to a end—and what an ending it is!
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Study: Read through the Greek New Testament in a Year
After a few years of using other Bible reading plans, I’m returning in 2020 to a plan that I’ve used in the past to read through the New Testament in Greek each year. The plan that I’ve found most useful for that is one from Denny Burk, which is based on a plan prepared by […]
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Rob Plummer: The Perplexing Problem of When Quirinius Governed Syria + “The Living Years” (Mike + the Mechanics)
This week’s episode covers the birth of Jesus, death, resurrection, and everything in between! It’s only a few days until Christmas 2019—a celebration which, this year, Timothy has very helpfully renamed “The Star Wars: Episode IX After Party.” At some point between now and Christmas Day, millions of people throughout the world will hear these words […]
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Dan DeWitt: Why Do the Apologetics of C.S. Lewis Matter? + “All Along the Watchtower” (U2)
Welcome to a new episode of Three Chords and the Truth: The Apologetics Podcast, with Dr. Dan DeWitt, a discussion of C.S. Lewis, and a celebration of a duo of flagrant illegalities! This episode commemorates two illegal acts, both of which were captured on tape and involved live rock and roll. The first of these […]
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Timothy Paul Jones and Garrick Bailey: Why Everyone Needs Creeds + “Where the Streets Have No Name” (U2)
Welcome to the creed episode of Three Chords and the Truth! But don’t worry: we are not talking about the band Creed. (In case you’ve forgotten, Creed was the 1990s band whose videos were filled with embarrassingly-bad CGI and with way too many scenes in which the lead vocalist apparently couldn’t keep himself from flailing […]
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Apologetics: Fragments of Otherwise Unknown Gospels
Gnostic Gospels and other unorthodox texts receive a lot of attention in popular media. The Gospel of Judas and the forged Gospel of Jesus’ Wife both became major news stories, for example, and a wide array of Gnostic texts are mentioned in novels like The Da Vinci Code that feed on bizarre conspiracy theories. It’s worth remembering, however, that there are […]
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