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Can you think of a time when you were called upon to give a defense of your faith in Christ? If so, briefly explain.
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Yes, during the 15 years that God gave me the privilege to teach in a public-school setting.
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I have participated in jail ministry for several years and work with parolees and probationers to help them develop a relationship with Jesus. I am frequently challenged about why I am Christian or why they should consider Christianity. My responses are often not well accepted, and I feel this is partly due to my not having organized thinking in my defense of Christianity. Too often the conversation moves from why Christianity to questions about the Bible’s reliability or about why believe there is one true God, or the church is full of hypocrites or several other challenges. By trying to address these points as they come up my defense of Christianity feels weaken and unclear. I need help to present my faith more clearly.
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I think the entire history of the Jewish people within and beyond the Old Testament texts are a huge testimony of who God is, why he created the world and humans, and his hope and design for it all. It’s fascinating how much I didn’t hear about this history and even the prophecies in the Torah and Pentateuch growing up in a christian home, but how later on in my young adulthood this history and these stories deeply shaped my belief in God as Lord, and the story of the Gospel more specifically. I think it would be very difficult to ignore the Jewish community as God’s people amidst all they have suffered and been through yet still remaining as a people. Likewise, I think it would be difficult to ignore how the Church has grown out of the Jewish faith and community into all the world over the last 2,000 years. If you follow the history and the people along with it, there is a deep recognition that God is who He says he is and is up to something big in our world today, and will complete that work when He returns and makes all things new.
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Believe or it not, even though I attended a Christian undergraduate school, there were times I had to defend, not so much my faith, but certain aspects of what I believed as it related to a couple of courses I took.
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Yes, many times to friends and other people who may have asked me or when I saw the opportunity to share. I do not think I am a good as I would like to be, but I keep working on it.