Scott Fillmer

I began a new journey in my walk this summer, 2009, one I have felt a long time calling to pursue but just never could figure out how and when.  That is probably because the how and when should have been left up to God, not me trying to figure it out but non-the-less, after many years, I have decided to start my academic pursuit of work in ministry, whatever that comes to mean in the future, in seminary.

For some reason, I decided to start off my 2009 class year at Liberty with Apologetics, probably because I knew so little about the subject.  As an introduction we were given seventeen claims we as Christians are called to defend and fifteen we are called to refute, all of which I have listed below.

It was interesting that I should start my seminary work with this class.  These point below are probably an overview of what is in the years ahead of me.  I see many things I know I believe are true, but many I can not begin to explain in logical terms.  Makes me look forward to the times ahead of me.

All of us as Christians are called to share and defend our faith.  We don’t have to be experts in all these areas below, but we should know, the rest of the world expects us to be, or at least expects us to be able to explain to them, in common terms, the points below.

Seventeen claims we are called upon to defend as Christians in our Time:

The following are in no particular order, but all are important and all are challenged by the modern secularist mindset.

1. God exists
2. The Lordship of Jesus Christ—He was fully God and fully man.
3. Christ died for our sins
4. Christ rose from the dead
5. God is all knowing and all powerful
6. God is all goodness, in spite of the fact of evil in the world
7. The Bible is the inerrant Word of God
8. Events recorded in the Bible really happened and tell us something significant about God, about life, and about morals
9. God will judge the world on the basis of the moral behavior of mankind
10. Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, to peace with God
11. Faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for one to be right with God
12. The churches have the freedom and right to preach and teach God’s truth in God’s way.
13. The teachings of God’s word exemplify a moral “high ground”
14. A life lived so as to please God is better than a secular lifestyle
15. The historic truths of the Christian faith are objectively true, in the same sense that scientific truths or other secular truths are true.
16. We are responsible to God for our moral behavior.
17. Mankind is a special creation of God, not the product of evolution or of impersonal forces in the universe

Fifteen worldly claims we are called upon to refute as Christians:

Some of these may appear to overlap, but each is a separate issue, and each has adherents in the world.  You will discover that there are people even in our churches who believe at least some of these, according to research done by George Barna.

1. All Religions lead to the same god
2. It doesn’t matter what your religion is as long as you are sincere—God understands
3. Jesus is merely a great teacher or prophet
4. God is too loving to ever send anyone to Hell
5. A god who would send any of his “Children” to Hell is not a god worthy of our worship
6. Morality is relative.  You have to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong.
7. We are the end product of evolution, the crowning achievement of the forces of nature.
8. Man is the measure of all things.  What is good is what benefits the human race.
9. The individual is all that matters—what’s good is what is good for you!
10. Religion and Science are different realms—religious truths are different from scientific truths.
11. “I know what’s best for me! I don’t need anyone else running my life!”
12. Don’t worry about doctrine!  Religion is about what you feel!  If I have peace in my heart, then that’s all I need.
13. The Bible is a human book, a product of the religious experiences of one people.
14. The Bible is an old book—it was fine for back then but it has nothing to say to our time, to people today.
15. Muslims worship one god too!  So it must all be the same God.

This post was originally created on May 11 2009 and updated in June 2010.