Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig. Today, the Doctrine of the Church, part one.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Today we begin our penultimate locus in our survey of Christian doctrine. But before we do, let's pause for a moment

so as to reconnoiter and to understand where we are. Let me remind you first of all of the

threefold purpose of our Defender's class. Our purpose is, first, to train

Christians to understand, articulate, and defend basic Christian truths. Our goal is to help you

to better understand what you believe, to articulate it carefully,

and to be able to defend it. Secondly, to reach out with the gospel to those who do not yet

know Christ, always being ready to give a defense to anybody

who should ask for the reason for the hope that is in us. So the second purpose of the class

is evangelistic, to reach out with the gospel to those who don't yet know Christ.

And thirdly, to be an incendiary fellowship of mutual encouragement and love.

Defenders is, as it were, our church within the church, so to speak,

as we come together to know each other personally

and mutually encourage and pray for one another as we grow in our Christian lives.

So those are the basic purposes for which the Defender's Class exists.

Our class is structured according to the so-called loki communes of classical Protestant theology.

The loki communes were literally the commonplaces, or the chief themes of systematic theology.

Our class is structured in 15 sections, each of which takes one locus or one theme of Christian doctrine.

So we began, for example, with the doctrine of revelation,

and looked at how God reveals himself in nature, in Scripture, and in Christ. We then spent a

good deal of time on the doctrine of God, understanding God's existence and nature,

...