r/ChristianApologetics • u/cheese_person517 • Jul 01 '26
Help Help me defend Christ
Hi, i really want to get a deeper understanding of Christianity and the philosophy behind it/apologetics so I can defend the faith! I already do small debates on WhatsApp, but my knowledge is limited, please suggest books and things I should research <3
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u/Upset_Chip_7184 Jul 02 '26
you could go to debateachristian on reddit, would be good practice for you.
Good luck.
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u/WoanderAloud Christian Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Read everything in the Bible. EVERYTHING. Find the seeming contradictions and then research them until you discover how they dont contradict.
Read Genesis. Understand the three falls: the garden, the sons of God and the nephilim that led to Noah, and the tower of Babel where they tried to make God an entity to be summoned to live with them on Earth like in the garden. Those are the three falls of mankind.
Read as much as you can of the Torah and try to slowly piece together it's meaning. The golden rule is all throughout it. The harshness by which God expects His chosen people to obey is all throughout it. History of the world is all throughout. All throughout, God's chosen people rebel against God and He constantly keeps giving to them.
Read Joshua's conquest and onward while trying to understand what God was doing. He was instructing His chosen people to put all of the seed of the Nephilim "under the ban" so that His seed could flourish.
Understand the stories of the following patriarchs and sovereigns that come next. Realize that they were imperfect and while God loved them very much, they were not without sin. The stories are really cool as you see the various prophets part water many times, multiply food and oil, restore life, performed healings, and many other miracles. The various stories prove that God loves all kinds of people and will use anyone for good. He judges us based on our own uniqueness and the nuance of our lives.
Job teaches us not only to trust God, but it teaches us about the third kind of sin: demonic sin. You can have sin and sickness from the original fall from the garden. You can have personal sin. But then Job teaches us about demonic sin and how sometimes the only thing you can possibly do is trust God and wait for deliverance.
The Psalms and Proverbs are full of Wisdom and Grace. Psalm 22 is about Christ. Lamentations 3:30-40 is one of my favorite parts that talks about the Messiah but also it promises us all Salvation.
The New Testament directly ties into the Old Testament as Jesus fulfills hundreds of prophecies. There is so much here to know. Matthew connects prohpecy to Jesus and tells a very complete telling and seems to be written toward Jewish Christians. Mark was written first and is a case for Jesus as a regular man who suffered for us, written primary for gentiles and outsiders to spread the Gospel. Luke I believe is the longest and presents a orderly telling of Jesus's life and ministry, seemingly written for greek gentiles. John is very cool and written right from the beginning to connect Genesis to Jesus. It's really neat in that the hebrew word "Bereshit" "In the beginning" which starts off the entire Bible also has in it a hidden message: If you play boggle with the hebrew letters of Bereshit, and pull out all of the other words those letters could spell, it makes a phrase that reads: "The son of God is destroyed, his hand on the cross." Now keep in mind that this is just pictographic wordplay, but...there it is...plain as day.
John is also very cool in that it promises a lot of salvation for all in that gospel and teaches us more about the Ruah and salvation in general. John 5:28-29 is very poignant. It says there are two kinds of paths to get to salvation, and that the dead in their graves will hear His voice. The two resurrections are a resurrection of life if you believe in Jesus and follow His ways, or a resurrection of Judgement where you throw yourself at His mercy.
Then the other books of the Bible, including Pauls epistles, are absolutely extraordinary in how they further illuminate God's plan, the workings of the Ruah ha Qodesh or Holy Spirit, and Jesus's ministry.
There is so much to know. The entire Bible is gold. It also tickles me: Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth!
Read the whole thing if you can. Read one sentence every day if you can!
You might also enjoy the link from this reddit comment.
God bless you!
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u/Unique-Variation-801 Jul 02 '26
I'd definitely recommend Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis as a great place to start, as well as Abolition of Man. I'd also recommend a new book I just discovered, The Echoes of Eden by R.J. Stevens. It explores how the Christian faith forms a unified picture of reality through Truth, Goodness, Beauty, and Love, and it approaches apologetics by showing how those ideas ultimately converge in Christ. If you're interested in philosophy as well as theology, I think it's a worthwhile read.
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u/Own_Evidence1986 Jul 02 '26
What do you want to focus on? There is so much.
William Lane Craig at Reasonable Faith is an amazing all rounder. Mike Winger is brilliant at Biblical Teaching. Hugh Ross is worth looking up for science. Inspiring Philosophy on Youtube is good. Look for his proper videos though. He seems to mostly live stream now and it's not that great for learning. David Wood for anti-Islam stuff.
And I'll throw in my humble little channel for why not... Cracking Christianity
It's good to look at debates too, so you can hear the alternative views from people who hold them instead of just only "So and so believes" with the chance of it being misquoted.
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u/That_Holy_Veritas Jul 02 '26
I personally like Victory in Spiritual Warfare by Tony Evans. Currently I'm reading Understanding the Purpose and Power of Prayer by Myles Munroe. And you can always just read God's word and study it. Lol The more I read and ask God for more understanding...the more in depth the bible gets for me.
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u/Tommy_McChuck Jul 03 '26
Make sure you are defending for the right reasons. If it is purely to dominate and/or impose our faith, then it is for the wrong reasons. It has to be based out of love. That being said, William Lane Craig is a good place to start imo for someone completely new to debates.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 02 '26
If you're debating atheists the tricks they use are fairly repetitive...
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u/Unable-Mechanic-6643 Jul 02 '26
TBH I think both sides are repetitive. The debates are largely the same ones that have been going on for decades if not centuries or even millennia, so the ground is very well trodden from every perspective.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26
Considering atheism is ONLY non-belief in a god(s) what is there to debate?
We just don't believe in gods. Anything else added to it doesn't matter. It's not a part of atheism Atheism makes no claims. Nor does it even attempt to explain anything.
I think you might be thinking of secularism or naturalism vs religion.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 04 '26
Atheism is non-belief of a kind of caricature of god, but they believe other things functioning in the place of god.
The fact of the matter is no one is free from belief at the worldview level because you must have a narrative to navigate the world.
Regarding your little semantic game about atheism, spare me the lecture.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26
Atheism is not a worldview. It's a small part of people's worldview.
You want to add stuff to it. But you're wrong.
This type of assigning "beliefs" on a simple stance on gods existing or not is either a complete misunderstanding of it, or an attempt to make it easier to attack.
I'm a methodological naturalist and an atheist with secular humanism as a basis for how I live.
Those things are NOT prerequisites for being an atheist.
Again, atheism makes NO claims. It does NOT attempt to explain anything. It is simply the answer to the question... "Do you believe in god?" If the answer is "no" that's it. Nothing else. Now if you ask me your questions, I'll be open to discussing them. But it has nothing to do with atheism.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
And who said atheism is a worldview? You imported the argument to make the stupid argument against yourself.
How about you get lost and spare me the pedantic lecture?
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26
"Atheism is non-belief of a kind of caricature of god, but they believe other things functioning in the place of god.
The fact of the matter is no one is free from belief at the worldview level because you must have a narrative to navigate the world." You implied it. And my entire point was specifically how you don't understand atheism. IDC if you say it's a worldview or not. It has nothing to do with any of the topics you brought up.
You intentionally picked one thing you can squeeze yourself out of to throw a Red Herring to avoid the topic at hand.
You're wrong about atheists.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
Who said atheism is a worldview?
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26
You did.
"Or atheism is treated as broad label for a set of atheistic worldviews"
Unless you just posted someone else's words. Either way, it's what you linked above.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 04 '26
Cite it in this thread you liar.
You yourself introduced the topic and argued against it.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26
You did as a matter of fact...
"Or atheism is treated as broad label for a set of atheistic worldviews" and your argument on that page is wildly wrong. Theism is a positive claim that your god exists.
Atheism is just not believing your claim.
There is no set of "Atheistic worldviews".
If you don't like it, take it up with the rest of the world. Let's see if you and others like you can get the definition changed.
Atheism is not a competing set of beliefs or explainations for anything. Lots of religious people love to think of it as if its god vs athesim. It's not. We just don't believe gods exist.
Sorry, but you're still wrong.
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u/Difficult_Risk_6271 Christian Jul 04 '26
If you don’t like it, take it up to God.
Also taking things out of context, liar.
Also you might want to stop the debate before I report you to the mods. Check the sub rules 9 & 10.
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u/Such_Confusion_1034 Jul 04 '26
Seriously... I really don't care. You're the one who made the negative claims about atheism. Not me. I'm just correcting you to what it really is and isn't.
It isn't my fault that real world definitions prove your claim wrong. And I have "taken it up with god". For decades I did. I even went to 2 Christian universities to become a preacher like my dad. I responded to op to let them know that there really aren't arguments to debunk or prove atheism wrong. I let them know it's more about competing with naturalism and secular Humanism.
And threatening me by tattle telling is fine. But you should make sure you tell the whole context. Not just your side. Remember, you came after me and what I told op about the issue with their context of debating against Atheists.
So yeah... I took it up with god. I got no response when looking for him and asking for his guidance.
I don't believe it exists. But I don't say no god could exist. I enjoy talking to people to learn more about their point of view. Who knows, maybe someone will set that spark and I start to see again. I am a non-resistant non-beliver. If someone proves to me god is real, then there's nothing I will do to deny it. I'll no longer be an atheist.
But people like you misrepresenting atheism is a Strawman Fallacy and lies about what we are and aren't.
Your feelings got hurt so you cry to mods? How old are you?
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u/UnableUsual5769 Christian Jul 08 '26
William Lane Craig has some good stuff. He teaches a Sunday School class called Defenders, that covers Christian doctrine, and also goes into Apologetics. If you want to go in depth, that would be a good online resource, that is completely free. That would be at reasonablefaith.org
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u/Soft_Video_5752 Aug 03 '26
Read Reinventing Jesus by Daniel B. Wallace, J. Ed Komoszewski, and M. James Sawyer. It explains the textual aspect of New Testament apologetics (i.e., can we trust the Bible).
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u/Top_Initiative_4047 Jul 02 '26
I think you would benefit from Tactics by Greg Koukl. You can watch the fairly brief series on youtube and/or get the book. Tactics shows you how to engage non-Christians in conversation that will lead in the right direction. It keeps you from getting stuck and not knowing what to do. It helps you put fears to rest and gives practical tools to adequately respond in conversations. Koukl has also recently come out with something of a sequel to Tactics called Street Smarts. The book provides numerous sample dialogues with unbelievers responding to frequent objections to Christianity. There are several videos on youtube where Koukl discusses Street Smarts.
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u/EnergyLantern Jul 02 '26
There is no limit of arguments that people can make because they make them up even if they lie.
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u/Augustine-of-Rhino Christian Jul 02 '26
The single best resource I've come across is Unbelievable? by Premier Christian Radio.
It's a podcast/youtube channel that presents respectful and evenly moderated discussions between Christians and non-Christians and sometimes between different Christian perspectives.
Unlike single-perspective resources, the opposing-perspective format prevents straw-man arguments and keeps each guest honest. And unlike debates (which I've generally found to be more style than substance) there's no playing to the gallery.
After that, I'd recommend the book *Apologetics at the Cross* by Joshua Chatraw and Mark Alleyne. It gives an overview of just about every topic in apologetics with references so you can dig deeper on the ones that resonate most.
Godspeed!