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Asking questions is an important part of the apologetic process, and it is important for every apologist to devote conscious thought to the art of asking questions—what they are used for, how they should be phrased, etc. The Socratic Method: Often apologists think of questions in connection with the Socratic method. In Plato’s dialogues, the figure of Socrates uses questions to challenge the beliefs of those around him. He asks questions designed to strip away false elements of these beliefs. Th …

CHALLENGE: Matthew and Luke contradict each other. Matthew says Judas hung himself (Matt. 27:5), but Luke says that “falling headlong he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out” (Acts 1:18).DEFENSE: The accounts preserve different aspects of the event but do not contradict each other.Both agree Judas died shortly after the Crucifixion. Matthew says Judas hanged himself after returning the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests, while Luke has Peter speaking of the event duri …

There are many books on the subject of salvation, and many of them share certain characteristics: 1. They focus exclusively on the subject of eternal salvation.2. They focus in particular on the doctrine of justification.3. They often ignore, in the interests of systematic theology, the way in which the Bible uses language.4. They are often written in a polemical, hostile style.5. Due to the authors’ unfamiliarity with the way other groups of Christians express themselves, they mistakenly …

“When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem” (Matt. 2:1).“Wise men” is a common translation in English Bibles, but it doesn’t give us a good idea who they were.The Greek word used here is magoi—the plural of magos. These terms may be more familiar from their Latin equivalents: In St. Jerome’s Vulgate, we read that magi came from the east, and an individual member of the group would thus be a magus.Who Were the Magi?Or …

One of the most mysterious figures haunting the Christian imagination is the Antichrist. Innumerable works, both fiction and non-fiction, have been devoted to him. The concept is so compelling that even non-Christians use it. Muslims believe that at the Second Coming of Christ he will do battle with the Antichrist (Arabic, al-Dajjal).But amid all the speculation about the Antichrist—much of it wild and fanciful—what do we really know about the figure?Very little.Four Mentions in Scr …