5-Minute Apologetics for Today

365 Quick Answers to Key Questions

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• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN:
  9780736937580
• Edition: 0
• Topic: Theology & Religion

Christians sometimes come across objections about the Bible they don't know how to answer, and they don't know where to look or whom they should ask. Believers can also get confused about doctrine, not having the knowledge or background to recognize unbiblical teaching. Bible scholar Ron Rhodes addresses many questions surrounding Christianity on topics such as…

• atheistic objections to Christianity
• evolution vs. creationism
• alleged contradictions or general accusations concerning the Bible
• answering the claims of cults about biblical doctrine
• relativism vs. absolute truth
• ethical issues such as abortion and divorce

This book of short, one-page answers on 365 of the most frequently asked questions can greatly increase readers' level of discernment in critical areas in just minutes a day. Busy people can boost their understanding of the Bible at their own pace by browsing topics of interest or by reading a topic a day.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Day 1: Absolute Truth
• Day 2: Be Reasonable
• Day 3: Philosophy Can Be Helpful
• Day 4: Reasonable Faith
• Day 5: Christians Can Be Deceived
• Day 6: False Doctrine
• Day 7: All Religions Are Not the Same
• Day 8: Faulty Doctrine Can Hurt
• Day 9: Marginalizing God’s Word
• Day 10: Contend for the Faith
• Day 11: Non-Rock-a-Boatus
• Day 12: Flex Some Apologetic Muscle
• Day 13: Salt and Light
• Day 14: Living Ethically
• Day 15: A Desire for More
• Day 16: Charity
• Day 17: Permissible but Not Necessarily Beneficial
• Day 18: Lying
• Day 19: Oaths
• Day 20: Civil Disobedience
• Day 21: Capital Punishment
• Day 22: Suicide
• Day 23: Divorce
• Day 24: Slavery
• Day 25: An Activist View of War
• Day 26: A Pacifist View of War
• Day 27: A Selectivist View of War
• Day 28: Just War
• Day 29: Self-Defense
• Day 30: Laziness
• Day 31: Human Life Begins at Conception
• Day 32: Abortion
• Day 33: Fornication and Adultery
• Day 34: Polygamy
• Day 35: Homosexuality
• Day 36: Liberation from Homosexuality
• Day 37: Skepticism
• Day 38: Agnosticism
• Day 39: Denying God’s Existence Is Not Logical
• Day 40: Miracles
• Day 41: Empirical Observation
• Day 42: A Cause and a Beginning
• Day 43: Christian Atrocities
• Day 44: Extermination
• Day 45: Hypocrisy
• Day 46: Jesus Is the Messiah
• Day 47: Jesus and Pagan Myths
• Day 48: Jesus and Simple Legends
• Day 49: Is Fulfilled Prophecy a Hoax?
• Day 50: Theological Bias
• Day 51: The Problem of Evil
• Day 52: God Does Not Create Moral Evil
• Day 53: Evil and Free Will
• Day 54: Evil and Intelligent Design
• Day 55: Evil and an All-Powerful God
• Day 56: Good out of Evil
• Day 57: The Boundaries of Evil
• Day 58: Evolution
• Day 59: Microevolution and Macroevolution
• Day 60: Mutations
• Day 61: Natural Selection
• Day 62: The Meaning of Miracles
• Day 63: Miracles Can Happen
• Day 64: Miracles and Deity
• Day 65: Miracles in Jesus’ Hometown
• Day 66: More Miracles than Jesus
• Day 67: Cultists in Our Houses
• Day 68: Beware of Cults
• Day 69: Characteristics of Cults
• Day 70: Sociology and the Cults
• Day 71: Cults’ Moral Characteristics
• Day 72: Talking with Cult Members
• Day 73: Reincarnation
• Day 74: Astrology
• Day 75: Participation in the Occult
• Day 76: Mysticism
• Day 77: A Christian Belongs to Christ
• Day 78: Knowing God and Knowing About God
• Day 79: Knowing God Intimately
• Day 80: General Revelation
• Day 81: Special Revelation
• Day 82: God and the Old Testament Prophets
• Day 83: The Apostles
• Day 84: Progressive Revelation
• Day 85: False Prophets and Teachers
• Day 86: New Testament Prophets
• Day 87: Holy Books
• Day 88: A Library of Inspired Books
• Day 89: The Holy Spirit: The Agent of Inspiration
• Day 90: Scripture Is “God-breathed”
• Day 91: God and Human Writers
• Day 92: All of Scripture Is Inspired
• Day 93: What the New Testament Writers Knew
• Day 94: Fulfilled prophecy and Inspiration of Scripture
• Day 95: No Inaccurate Prophecies
• Day 96: Our Supreme and Final Authority
• Day 97: The Canon in New Testament Times
• Day 98: Five Tests for Canonicity
• Day 99: In or Out?
• Day 100: The Apocrypha
• Day 101: Papyri and New Testament Studies
• Day 102: The Dead Sea Scrolls
• Day 103: The Dead Sea Scrolls and Biblical Manuscript Transmission
• Day 104: New Testament Variants
• Day 105: Has the Bible Been Corrupted?
• Day 106: The Preservation of Biblical Manuscripts
• Day 107: Extrabiblical Christian Sources and the Bible Books
• Day 108: Secular Extrabiblical Sources and the Bible
• Day 109: The Gospels’ Apparent Contradictions
• Day 110: The Gospels Are Selective
• Day 111: Nature and the Bible
• Day 112: Archaeology and the Bible
• Day 113: Archaeology and the Old Testament
• Day 114: Archaeology and the New Testament
• Day 115: Formal Equivalence
• Day 116: Dynamic Equivalence
• Day 117: Gender-Inclusive Language
• Day 118: Principles of Bible Interpretation
• Day 119: A Literal Interpretation of the Bible
• Day 120: Esoteric Interpretation
• Day 121: The Wisdom Sayings and Bible Promises
• Day 122: Conditional and Unconditional Promises
• Day 123: Promises to the Israelites—and to Us?
• Day 124: Promises in the Old Testament and Today
• Day 125: Christian Meditation
• Day 126: Majestic and All-Powerful but Also Personal
• Day 127: God the Father
• Day 128: God’s Names
• Day 129: Elohim
• Day 130: God’s Attributes
• Day 131: God Is Spirit
• Day 132: Is God Distant?
• Day 133: Pantheism and the Bible
• Day 134: God’s Sovereignty
• Day 135: God, the Almighty Judge
• Day 136: Our Incomparable God
• Day 137: The God of Christianity and the God of Islam
• Day 138: God Is a Trinity
• Day 139: Is the Trinity a Logical Contradiction?
• Day 140: The Trinity and Ancient Paganism
• Day 141: Jesus and the Trinity
• Day 142: Divine Sovereignty and Human Freedom
• Day 143: Three Views of Predetermination
• Day 144: Resting in God’s Sovereignty
• Day 145: Saved in Trouble, Not from Trouble
• Day 146: Our Intelligently Created Universe
• Day 147: God’s Fingerprints
• Day 148: Scientifically Discernible Design
• Day 149: Creationism and Thermodynamics
• Day 150: Intelligent Design Is Science
• Day 151: Intelligent Design and DNA
• Day 152: Design Flaws?
• Day 153: Creation and Divine Revelation
• Day 154: Foundational Truths in Genesis
• Day 155: Scripture, Time, and Eternity
• Day 156: The Trinity and Creation
• Day 157: The Days of Genesis 1
• Day 158: The Gap Theory
• Day 159: Intelligent Life on Other Planets
• Day 160: Progressive Creationism
• Day 161: Theistic Evolution
• Day 162: Young-Earth Creationism
• Day 163: Cain’s Wife
• Day 164: The Universal Flood
• Day 165: Jesus Was a Real Person
• Day 166: Jesus Never Married
• Day 167: Jesus: A Good Moral Teacher?
• Day 168: Jesus and the Messianic Prophecies
• Day 169: Messianic Prophecies and the Jews
• Day 170: The Angel of the Lord
• Day 171: Melchizedek
• Day 172: Jesus and the Archangel Michael
• Day 173: Jesus, the Christ
• Day 174: Jesus Is God
• Day 175: Jesus and the Names and titles of God
• Day 176: Jesus Is Equal to God
• Day 177: Jesus and God’s Authority
• Day 178: Jesus, the Son of God
• Day 179: Jesus, the Son of Man
• Day 180: Christ’s Humanity
• Day 181: The Virgin Birth
• Day 182: Jesus’ Two Natures
• Day 183: Christ Emptied Himself in the Incarnation
• Day 184: The Incarnation Lasts Forever
• Day 185: Jesus’ Temptation
• Day 186: Jesus’ Three Primary Offices
• Day 187: Jesus, Our Savior
• Day 188: Jesus, the Divine Word
• Day 189: Christ, Our Divine Advocate
• Day 190: Jesus and the Indian Gurus
• Day 191: Jesus’ Parables
• Day 192: Jesus’ Deity and the Bible
• Day 193: Jesus Did What His Father Did
• Day 194: Jesus Said What His Father Said
• Day 195: Jesus and the Time of His Return
• Day 196: The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven
• Day 197: The Resurrection: The Heart of Biblical Christianity
• Day 198: Evidence of the Resurrection
• Day 199: Jesus Rose Physically
• Day 200: The Resurrection—a Conspiracy?
• Day 201: The Wrong Tomb?
• Day 202: Did Jesus Swoon on the Cross?
• Day 203: Jesus’ Body Was Not Stolen
• Day 204: The Disciple’s Memories and Jesus’ Resurrection
• Day 205: Mass Hallucinations?
• Day 206: The Resurrection of Our Bodies
• Day 207: The Tents We Live In
• Day 208: In Jesus’ Name
• Day 209: Our Supreme Love
• Day 210: Of Pearls and Pigs
• Day 211: Lead Us Not into Temptation
• Day 212: Learn from the Fig Tree
• Day 213: Two Senses of Forgiveness
• Day 214: God the Holy Spirit
• Day 215: The Holy Spirit Is a Person
• Day 216: Sealed by the Holy Spirit
• Day 217: The Holy Spirit: A Deposit of What Is to Come
• Day 218: Be filled with the Holy Spirit
• Day 219: Walk in the Holy Spirit
• Day 220: Spiritual Gifts and Natural Talents
• Day 221: The Spiritual Gifts Today
• Day 222: Slain in the Spirit
• Day 223: Holy Laughter
• Day 224: We Are Social Beings
• Day 225: Adam as the Head
• Day 226: The Races of Humanity
• Day 227: What Is the Soul?
• Day 228: We Are Not Divine
• Day 229: Christianity and a Woman’s Value
• Day 230: The Saddest Event in Scripture
• Day 231: Missing the Target
• Day 232: Fallen in Sin
• Day 233: Bad News, Good News
• Day 234: Mortal and Venial Sins
• Day 235: When Christians Sin
• Day 236: The Temptations of This World
• Day 237: The Unforgivable Sin
• Day 238: The Eternal Plan of Salvation
• Day 239: The Trinity, and Our Salvation
• Day 240: Divine Election and God’s Foreknowledge
• Day 241: Divine Election and God’s Sovereignty
• Day 242: Limited Atonement
• Day 243: Unlimited Atonement
• Day 244: Scripture and the Gospel
• Day 245: Jesus Is the Only Way
• Day 246: Are Christians Narrow-Minded?
• Day 247: Are Christians Arrogant?
• Day 248: Lost People and the Gospel
• Day 249: Christ’s Substitutionary Atonement
• Day 250: Did Jesus Become Sin for Us?
• Day 251: Born Again, Justified, Reconciled, Forgiven, and Adopted
• Day 252: Only by God’s Grace
• Day 253: Trust in Christ and Be Born Again
• Day 254: Change Your Mind About Jesus
• Day 255: A Clean Slate
• Day 256: Instant Forgiveness
• Day 257: Christians Are “in Christ”
• Day 258: Secure Salvation
• Day 259: The Book of Life
• Day 260: Will Everyone Be Saved?
• Day 261: The Law Cannot Save
• Day 262: Sinless Perfection
• Day 263: Speaking in Tongues
• Day 264: Baptism and Salvation
• Day 265: Is Healing Guaranteed in the Atonement?
• Day 266: Spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ
• Day 267: The Church—Universal and Local
• Day 268: Israel and the Church
• Day 269: The Sabbath and the Lord’s Day
• Day 270: Musical Instruments in Church
• Day 271: Traditional and Contemporary Music in Worship
• Day 272: Grace-Giving, and Tithing
• Day 273: Women in Ministry
• Day 274: The Significance of Baptism
• Day 275: The Proper Mode of Baptism
• Day 276: Infant Baptism
• Day 277: The Significance of the Lord’s Supper
• Day 278: The Vast Spiritual World
• Day 279: Angels and Spirits
• Day 280: Angels and the Sons of God
• Day 281: Angels—God’s Invisible Servants
• Day 282: Angels Are Personal Beings
• Day 283: Angels Are Ministering Spirits
• Day 284: Angels’ Various Roles
• Day 285: Elect Angels and Evil Angels
• Day 286: Not all that Glitters Is Heavenly Gold
• Day 287: Does God Need Angels?
• Day 288: God’s Obedient Angels
• Day 289: Guardian Angels
• Day 290: Angels in Disguise
• Day 291: Ezekiel Saw the…UFO?
• Day 292: Lucifer’s Fall
• Day 293: Satan’s Titles
• Day 294: Satan’s Power
• Day 295: Bible Warnings About Demons
• Day 296: Christians and Demon Possession
• Day 297: Sickness and Demonic Spirits
• Day 298: Satan’s Counterfeits
• Day 299: Our Defense Against Satan
• Day 300: The World
• Day 301: Beware of the Flesh
• Day 302: Christians and the Rapture
• Day 303: The Jews and Their Land
• Day 304: Invading Israel
• Day 305: The Tribulation
• Day 306: Daniel’s “Seventieth Week”
• Day 307: Biblical Prophecy Cleanses the People of God
• Day 308: The Antichrist’s Global Domination
• Day 309: The Antichrist and Islam
• Day 310: The Tribulation and Armageddon
• Day 311: The Second Coming of Christ
• Day 312: The Millennium
• Day 313: Heaven and Earth Will Be Renewed
• Day 314: Jesus Is Coming Soon
• Day 315: Predicting the Dates of End-Time Events
• Day 316: Preterism
• Day 317: Biblical Prophecies—Manufactured After the Fact?
• Day 318: Death and Our Spirits
• Day 319: Descriptions of Death
• Day 320: Fear of Death
• Day 321: The Three Heavens
• Day 322: Today’s Heaven and the Future Heaven
• Day 323: The New Heaven and New Earth
• Day 324: Pictures of Heaven
• Day 325: The Eternal Heaven—a Physical Place
• Day 326: Heaven’s Location
• Day 327: Time in Heaven
• Day 328: The Eternal Heaven
• Day 329: With God in Heaven
• Day 330: An Eternal Reunion in Heaven
• Day 331: Babies Go Straight to Heaven When They Die
• Day 332: Firsthand Reports of Heaven
• Day 333: Husbands and Wives in the Afterlife
• Day 334: Heaven’s Population
• Day 335: Food in Heaven
• Day 336: Our Resurrection Bodies
• Day 337: Clothes in Heaven
• Day 338: Seeing Earth from Heaven
• Day 339: Not in Heaven
• Day 340: Animals in Heaven?
• Day 341: Joy in Heaven
• Day 342: Hell Is Real
• Day 343: Endless Punishment for the Wicked
• Day 344: Hell and Our Loving God
• Day 345: “You fool!”
• Day 346: The Judgment Seat of Christ
• Day 347: The Great White Throne
• Day 348: Purgatory
• Day 349: God Is Holy—We Should Be Holy Too
• Day 350: Three Aspects of Sanctification
• Day 351: Abide in Christ and Bear Fruit
• Day 352: Take Up Your Cross
• Day 353: David: Our Example for Faith in God
• Day 354: Conditioning Our Faith Muscles
• Day 355: Wisdom in the Proverbs
• Day 356: Recovery and Scripture
• Day 357: Prayer: Communicating with God
• Day 358: Praying Effectively
• Day 359: The Many Benefits of Prayer
• Day 360: God Delights to Answer Our Prayers
• Day 361: Short Prayers
• Day 362: Angels and Answered Prayer
• Day 363: Contemplative Prayer
• Day 364: A Top-Down Perspective
• Day 365: Postscript: Keep On Learning
• Index by Day
• If you would like to dig deeper . . .
• About the Author