Pastor Mike Winger is an apologist. He is featured teacher of Bible thinker online ministry,

online at Biblethinker.org. And we're going to discuss the importance of Christian apologetics

with Pastor Mike Winger, who joins me now. Pastor, thanks for being with us today.

Hey, Bob, thanks for having me. Glad to be here with you.

Thank you. This time of year, I mean, I would say all the time we need to put first Peter 315

into practice, of course, but this time of year, especially because people are going to get

together with a lot of family member and friends, and there's going to be skeptical non-believers

and that cranky uncle Joe who says, oh, yeah, well, how do you explain this? How do you explain that?

So talk about how important it is that as believers, it's not like we have to know everything

about everything, but we need to at least equip ourselves to be prepared to give an answer

for the reason for the hope that we have when someone asks us, but to do this with gentleness

and respect. Yeah, I think that's so valuable. And a lot of times for Christians, you know,

you've had such an experience with God, the Holy Spirit working in your life that you feel you don't

need this evidence and the answers to all these questions. But when we think about evangelism,

when we think about, say, our cranky uncle, perhaps, or maybe just someone who's even a reluctant

skeptic, you know, they just, they don't have this experience with God. They have questions,

they have intellectual barriers, and it's just love to have good answers to the things that they're

asking and to not just tell them I had an experience, but, but say, hey, here's why this, this thing

you think is a problem isn't a problem. This shouldn't be a barrier between you praying,

you reading the word, you seeking God, you coming to Christ. I think it's immensely valuable.

And as we look at, like, say the book of Acts, we actually see the disciples do it all the time,

even those who were eyewitnesses of his resurrection went out and made a case that Jesus was the Messiah

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