Apologia Newsletter - 11.23.09

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Get AMPed!

Dear Apologia Supporter,

We are very excited about the amount of ministry opportunities God is providing for us! Since launching Apologia on October 1, 2008, we have had the opportunity to teach at many different churches across several states, minister to thousands of Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, and Atheists, and have seen God spread our ministry worldwide via the internet. We literally receive opportunities to evangelize the lost and equip the body from around the world every day! Because of this, and through much prayer, we feel that God is leading us to make the next step; to take the ministry to the next level. We have more than enough ministry opportunities, and could very easily create many more, to make Apologia our full-time ministry and occupation, we simply lack the needed funding.

We are seeking believers and churches to join what we are calling our A.M.P. Team, or Apologia Monthly Partnership Team. We are asking for Two Year Commitments on a monthly basis to help support our ministry costs. We ask that you please prayerfully consider supporting us. Those who make a two year commitment of $25 or more a month will receive some really cool perks, such as:

A free Apologia T-shirt

A free copy of Jeff’s upcoming book, “Reaching Mormons,” before it is made available to the public

An AMP Team Certificate

Exclusive Messages by Jeff and Evangelism Videos

A 25% Discount off anything we sell, including, but not limited to, Books and Apologia Supplies

Other AMP team exclusives, TBD

If you feel that God is leading you to make a financial commitment to us, please let us know. We would be privileged to partner with you. You can simply fill out the following form and return it to us. You can mail it back, or scan and email it to Luke Pierson at luke@defendthefaith.org. If you have any questions, please let us know. I can be reached on my cell at (480) 251-5376 and Luke can be reached on his at (219) 746-1746. Thanks and God Bless!

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Exciting and Important News from Apologia! - 11.15.09

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Classic example of the foolishness of unbelief.

One of the most popular debates held between a Christian and an Atheist in the last 25-years was between Dr. Greg Bahnsen and Dr. Gordon Stein held in California. This clip is a classic portion of the debate. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.

This is just one more example and encouragement that the unbelieving worldview inevitably leads to irrationality and inconsistency. The Christian position is intellectually rigorous and easily engages the atheistic worldview. To reject the existence of God is to abandon our intellect, the foundations of scientific method, morality, etc. My prayer is that Christians will stand-up and reach the neo-atheists of our day with the love of Christ and the Gospel.

Atheist proselytizer Richard Dawkins is on a campaign to have atheists "come out of the closet" and begin winning people to the fundamentalist atheist movement (ASU gammage, 2008). This creates a wonderful opportunity to engage and reason with people who need the Gospel. May God open the eyes of those we reach to the Gospel of God's love and grace to sinners. :]





Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1 Corinthians 1:20


Jeff Durbin
President
Apologia

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Upcoming Ministry Event - 11.18.09!

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Atheism examined and found wanting...

I gave a lecture a few nights ago. During the lecture someone began to challenge me and debate me on the Bible and the existence of God. Here is some of the audio and what followed. I hope you are blessed by it and you are encouraged to be bold in your faith!

Ultimately, what you should discover is that all the while this young man was attacking the Christian God he was showing evidence of "knowing" Him despite His denials. He lives practically as though he believed in God (at a minimal level) and yet denies God by his profession. As Christians, we need to "dig-in" and show the atheist that he does know God--but, something is wrong. Although the Atheist knows God (and evidences that fact at every turn of his life) he suppresses the truth about Him. After we have demonstrated that this is the case we can then be in a position to call him to repentance and faith to receive the Lord Jesus as Savior and Lord and the gift of eternal life!

Romans 1:18

Jeff Durbin
President
Apologia

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Bishop McKay Jones agreed to the possibility of a public discussion.

Last evening the LDS church held a public lecture on "Are Mormons Christian?" We are tremendously grateful for the opportunity presented for a public discussion and dialogue between Bishop Jones of the LDS church and myself. Mr. Jones seems like a gracious and very nice guy and I have tremendous respect for his willingness to engage in such a discussion. We still need to connect with all the parties involved and iron out details that would make both of us comfortable. We will announce more details as they become available. Please pray for us as we begin the process.

One of the greatest challenges presenting itself to Mormons and Christians alike is misunderstanding. Misunderstanding creates confusion and erects walls between us. Walls that exist between us only serve to create further divides and destroy any possibility of us having ANY effective dialogue or having any meaningful relationships. This should not be. God has presented an opportunity for us to begin an honest, loving, respectful and effective dialogue. When we held our public event in April, we allowed the audience to come up to the microphone and ask questions publicly and challenge what we were saying. Yet, the complaint from the LDS in attendance was that they would like to see the LDS church represented by an apologist. We agreed that that would be most effective. Last evening the complaint from the audience was that it was not truly an "open forum" event as the audience was not allowed to "ask" (verbally) questions or dialogue. The questions had to be written on cards. The complaint was that the LDS were allowed to go unchallenged and were simply pontificating. With an event like this, we can put both of those charges to rest.

Jeff Durbin
President
Apologia

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Audio of "Bible Answer Man" is finally up.

Sorry for the delay everyone. Although I spoke with Hank last week (Tuesday) it took them until today to actually broadcast it. I wanted to speak with Hank and have him on record before I respond specifically point-by-point to Andrew. I chose to do this, so that Andrew could see the inconsistency with his gospel and the Gospel that Hank is preaching just before his show airs. I know that "Christians" are not the sole infallible rule of faith-- Scripture is. However, I think it is important to point out that Andrew's gospel is in conflict with the men who share the station with him (Sproul, Macarthur, Stanley, etc.)... even with the man whose show airs before his. What kind of message is that sending to the world and to the kingdom of the cults?

Please hang on for further response.

He is Glorious!

Jeff
President
Apologia

Here is the audio. I was the last caller.

You can fast forward easier on oneplace.com.

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Response coming soon...

I want to thank you all (including the very gracious Mr. Tallman) for being so patient with our response to this issue. I have been extremely busy with ministry from around the country (and locally) and had to perform a funeral for a brother of mine who passed. Lord willing, I will be posting a quick biblical response as well as the audio from a conversation I had with Hank Hanegraaff that is extremely relevant and needs to be heard. I would like to say, I am very impressed and encouraged by Andrew's willingness to change his views if they are not in accord with Scripture. I also would like to compliment him on how he handles his blog. :]

More coming soon! Please stay tuned!

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Praise, Response and Support

APOLOGIA is so exciting! Luke and I get emails every day, from people all across the globe. Sometimes we get questions or challenges from people who are part of the Watchtower, LDS church, atheist organizations, etc. But, we also get a bunch of emails from fellow believers from all over the place. We are so encouraged. People get a hold of us from the U.K., Australia, Africa... everywhere! We have people tell us that they have watched our Youtube videos and were inspired to start reaching the cults. Many people write to us and tell us that they are using the material they heard from our videos or something in our blog. Many times people rely on us for one-on-one help and will call us for help just before they meet with some Mormon missionaries or JW's. Praise God! We just received this one from the Philippines:

Hi Jeff,

I like the way you dialogue with the Jehovah's Witness guy. You are full of patience, grace, and love that comes from the Lord while sharing the truth with him. Continue doing what you both are doing and may the Lord expand your ministry by equipping the Christians to reach out the kingdom of the cults.

Blessings,

Justyn

Well, Justyn thank you brother for your support.

I wanted you all to see an example of what we see everyday!

UPDATE:

Andrew Tallman got back to me. He said he didn't receive my emails where I asked him to check out our blog and get back to me (I sent two to the same address he emailed me from). I definitely want to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure he's really busy and maybe he overlooked or missed it. He seemed interested in a dialogue. Hopefully we can look forward to some answers from him. Please pray for him. Ultimately our desire is that he would believe in the Biblical Gospel and publicly renounce what he has promoted. Stay tuned...

REQUEST FOR PRAYER AND SUPPORT:


Have you ever considered giving through APOLOGIA? We are moving into a new-phase of ministry. In the last 6-months we have spoken to countless people from the cults, given out thousands of tracts, held public events to equip Christians as well as created direct relationships with the lost.

To be transparent...we need your support. Luke and I (along with our families)are in ministry full-time. We have VERY low overhead costs. But, we cannot continue to do what we do without your prayers and financial support. We want to thank you if you have given in the past and would be blessed if you would consider giving again or giving for the first-time. God is changing lives and bringing people to Himself. We are humbled to be a part of it. We need your help to keep doing it. Would you consider giving to support the work of bringing the Gospel to the lost?

We have a ministry goal. We would like to be able to raise 5,000 of support in the next 30-days. For ministry that is a pretty small budget. But, we can't make it without you. Please continue to pray for us and thank you so much for standing with us!

He is Glorious!

Jeff Durbin
President
Apologia

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